


Voltron Protocol: Russia

by Narniac4aslan



Series: Voltron Protocol [1]
Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Allura (Voltron), BAMF Hunk (Voltron), BAMF Keith (Voltron), BAMF Lance (Voltron), BAMF Pidge | Katie Holt, BAMF Shiro (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), But only if you squint, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hunk (Voltron) is so Pure, Hunk (Voltron)-centric, Hurt Hunk, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt Shiro (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Lance (Voltron) is a Dork, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Mission Fic, No Smut, Nuclear Weapons, Paladins, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sassy Pidge | Katie Holt, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Sorry Not Sorry, Spies & Secret Agents, Torture, Undercover Missions, but Pidge is my fav so..., but he's definitely bi, but they're gonna get hurt, everyone gets hurt, hurt pidge, klance, really only flirting, shallura - Freeform, they all get a turn - Freeform, they're all BAMF
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-02-17 03:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13068453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narniac4aslan/pseuds/Narniac4aslan
Summary: AIS (Altean Intelligence Service) agents Blue, Yellow and Green are members of Team Voltron, an elite team of the youngest agents to be out in the field in AIS history and with a perfect missions record. But when tragedy strikes the team at its core and a new leader comes into their close knit team, they must relearn how to work together  against the Galra criminal empire who is poised on the brink of global nuclear war. Alone, without support and with secrets deep within the team that could tear them apart, Team Voltron must face the most dangerous mission of their lives.





	1. Prologue

“We are out of time, Pink!” 

A bearded man paced frantically along the platform as the approaching train slowed to a halt. The doors of the carriages hissed open and the occupants began spilling out like syrup, seeping around pillars and newsstands. Everyone was focused on getting to their own destination and relatively ignorant of the man with the white beard stressfully pressing his ear. 

“Anytime now, Pink,” another, younger voice was heard over the com-link, “I can’t search for the currier until I have that name.”

“And you will have it, Green.” A female voice sounded, the tone otherwise occupied. “Just give me a tick.”

The bearded man pressed his lips. He was confident in his team. Faithfully so. Proudly so. Unwaveringly so. He checked his watch again. Quiznack. He was confident in his team. He was confident in his team. He was-

There were indistinct sounds of smashing and crunching with a few dull thuds. Pink’s voice spoke again, though not to the others joined in the com-link. It must have not turned off. 

“ Who is carrying the files?” Her voice was clear and fearless. She expected to be answered. The man’s anxiety lessened a squeeze. Finally, things were getting underway.

There was a silence that was obviously unacceptable, then a cracking thud and a gasp. 

“Who is the currier?” 

The bearded man could hear the urgency in her words, but he also knew that, to the unfortunate victim she was interrogating, it would sound as hard as steel and twice as dangerous. 

Though he had stopped his pacing, the bearded man lifted his cap and ran his fingers through his white hair, a visual image of the female’s veiled apprehension.

There was an agonizing half-second pause, and then –

“V-varkon!” a strained voice sputtered, “for the love of God!”

“Did you get that Green?” Pink asked, “I can ask him to spell it for you.” A slight lilt in her voice made her sound almost eager.

“White, you should have his face on your phone now.” Green’s voice was immediately responsive, almost cutting Pink off, much to the fortune of her victim.

A profile of a middle aged, potbellied man appeared on White’s phone. With a touch, the face was uploaded to a facial recognition scanner in his contact lens. The profiles of passers-by were scanned as quickly as White’s eyes took in their faces. After a few tense moments, where everyone on the coms held their breath, a profile lit up a match. Only his years of training kept White’s body from appearing anything but normal. Without another glance, he was on the move.

“Currier locked. Coming to you, Yellow.” White said, walking briskly down some stairs. He flipped an alumni ring into his palm and removed the gem to reveal a long tip.

Adjusting his leather satchel over his shoulders, the man identified as Varkon opened the door leading off the train platform. White also reached to open the door. Right over Varkon’s hand. 

Varkon gasped at the sudden pain, looking first at his hand, then behind him. A dark skinned man with a white beard shrugged a half hearted apology. Varkon just rolled his eyes and turned back around, the matter already forgotten.... and... why was the floor tilting? Varkon blinked as the entire station wobbled. 

As planned, White was ready to catch him.

“Hey, are you alright?” Concern was written over White’s face as he helped the man to a nearby bench. 

Unable to keep his eyes open another second, Varkon slouched in the corner of the bench, his last words slurring through his lips, “I won letu don Zarkonnnn.” 

And with that, his head fell back against the armrest. 

White lifted Varkon’s satchel over his shoulders and plopped the cap he had been wearing over Varkon’s face in a single movement. The unconscious man looked peacefully asleep to the rest of the world.

White walked away with confident steps, his back straight and eyes alight with relief in the ease of the mission, the previous tension all but forgotten in the light of victory, “Ready to hand off, Yellow.”

White turned the corner and a short distance away, a hefty, dark skinned young man rose from a bench, still flipping through a magazine.

“Ready to receive, White.” His soft voice spoke through the com-link. 

White suddenly slowed, further down the hall than Yellow, two men in dark clothes stood and dropped their papers they had been browsing. He turned quickly to see two other men rise from the waiting benches by the train arrival board.

“Yellow, remain civilian, someone has crashed this drop.”

“Local police?” Yellow’s voice raised a pitch but quickly adapted to the situation.

“No.” White took the satchel from his shoulder and hooked it around his body more securely as the darkly clothed men reached inside their jackets, “Armed hostiles.”

And he took off. Running to his right, he burst through a side door to a flight of concrete stairs. His sudden speed defied the age his white hair gave, and the hostiles were taken off guard. 

“Heading to the roof,” White said as he stopped at the bottom of the staircase to engage the first man who was about to reach for the satchel strap around his back. 

“I’m on my way.” Pink piped up.

Slamming the man’s head against the steel railing, White twisted the dazed attacker’s neck with expert hands, the snap barely heard in the scuffle. Without a backward glance, White flew up the stairs, calling to the com-link,

“Negative Pink. Rendezvous at the east alleyway, I’ll be there in three minutes.” His voice was barely out of breath as he neared the top of the flight, “Coming onto the roof Blue. They’re all yours.”

“I thought we had agreed, sir, my new code name is Sharpshooter!” a high, young voice whined into the coms.

White allowed amusement to twitch his lips as he neared the exit doors. The pounding of his pursuers created an echoing thunder of noise against the cement walls as they sprinted after him. 

“No one agreed to that but you, Blue.” 

“Shut up Green, no one asked for your opinion!”

“You did when you suggested ‘Sharpshooter!”

“And you didn’t protest at all, so the vote was unanimous.”

“S-ho not! You said, ‘Hey, you know what name is cooler than Blue? Sharpshooter.’ And then I said ‘How is Sharpshooter better than Blue? It’s way too long!’ And then you said, ‘Fine, then just Shooter?’ which is still longer than Blue, by the way.”

“To be fair to Blue, Green, ‘Sharpshooter’ is better than some previous name suggestions. Let’s not forget the whole ‘Hot Cakes’ incident...”

“You know what, Yellow, no one asked for your opinion either gracias very much! Sharpshooter out.”

“Good, cause I’m coming to the roof now, Blue.” White said, just as he exploded out of the metal doors. He quickly oriented himself before sprinting left across the long, flat roof of the train station. The pursuers were but a few seconds behind him.

“Aw, White, sir, you’re too kind, lining them all up for me like that.”

“I do what I can, Blue.” White reached into his pocket and pulled out a contraption resembling a sort of rectangular grenade. He pressed the button on the side, activating it with a beep.

Behind him, there was a sort of sssspffft sound and one of the pursuers fell to the side, his momentum rolling his body a few times before stilling. 

The edge of the roof was approaching fast and White sprinted faster, arms and legs pumping like pistons. 

Sssspffft.

The second pursuer was sent reeling from the unseen attack, his body almost completely flipping over itself, arms slapping the metal roof before stopping. 

“Woohohohoo! Milady is smoother than peanutbutter and bananas, Yellow! The new stabilizers are doin’ magic!”

“I thought those balled joints would be smoother than the old stabilizers. Glad they’ve passed a field test!” 

“Leave peanutbutter out of this, Blue.” White could almost see Green’s glare.

“Oh, oh, oh! Waitwait! He’s gonna use the landing pad! White’s gonna use the landing pad!” Blue’s voice rose an octave in excitement and White did not disappoint. 

Throwing the ‘grenade’ off the roof first, White jumped to fall six stories to the ground. Twisting his body as he fell, he took out his handgun and shot One! Two! Three! times at the last pursuer and he fell, body half hanging over the edge of the roof. The panache of the extra two shots may not have been necessary, but he liked to give his team a show when he could.

The ‘grenade’, upon contact with the ground, blew up an enormous air-filled landing pad. And not a moment too soon, as White landed on it not a second after it expanded. 

White took the time to rise slowly, trying to find the breath that had been knocked from his ribs. 

A final pursuer suddenly rounded the corner, gun drawn. Shit. White rolled on instinct, his body moving to a crouched position. Before he could raise his own gun, a sssspffft took the man out and he fell on his face, unmoving. 

White stood to his feet, slouching a bit over his knee as he finally found his breath. He looked across the rails stretching out in front of him to a tall lookout tower and gave a tired, two fingered salute in its direction.

“Think nothing of it sir.” Blue’s voice was beaming.

“Please stop saluting him like that, sir, we talked about this. It only encourages him.”

“I acknowledge when someone does a good job, Green.” White readjusted the satchel from around his body to his shoulder and turned to walk around a corner to the rendezvous, “Speaking of, I believe I owe you a new wireless scanner for that quick pull up back there. We might have missed Varkon if it wasn’t for those quick fingers.”

“Please sir, it’s my job. But yeah. You do owe me a new wireless. One point five seconds. Way under the previous three—you’re welcome.”

White approached the corner, resisting the urge to whistle happily. His team was turning out to be the best he could have possibly hoped for, which was defying all expectations back at headquarters. Many had insisted, on no uncertain terms, that such a young team to be a detriment to the AIS. 

White allowed pride to flood his heart. The Director, the Secretary, everyone- had said that these inexperienced, albeit talented, children would cost the agency more than they were worth. But White had persisted. He had seen the results of their training and their commitment. Through watching them very closely, he had also seen something unique, something that agents their age were often lacking. The ability to work as a team. It had been the whole reason White had insisted so passionately to the director that he could make these junior agents into a team the agency had never seen before. They worked well, the three of them. Incredibly well. 

It was also one of the reasons he let them bicker and have relatively free reign over the coms; it only strengthened their bond. They might not have been the best agents the AIS had to offer at the time he proposed the idea to his superiors, but they were certainly well on their way to becoming top paladin agents now. They were (usually) silent when they had to be, and when they weren’t, it was sibling-like arguments and squabbling. He was continuously criticized for his untraditional training methods, particularly from his daughter, but no one could deny the results. A perfect record. He could still barely comprehend it himself. Some close calls had admittedly come to pass, but every mission his team was presented with, they had completed—and then some. 

Even in his opinion, his team was young, some barely out of adolescence, and he knew just how sobering some of their missions could become. So let the kids be kids when they can, and they may even come out better for it. This was a philosophy that was back-boning most of his decisions on how he ran his team. A philosophy that was admittedly still in the experimental phases. All being said, White was immensely confident in his team, and now that it had been a full year, he was secretly almost giddy to present their success to Director Kolivan tomorrow. 

“Almost at rendezvous. Yellow, what’s your ETA?”

“Fourty-five seconds, Pink.” There was the sound of a sigh through tired lips over the com, “Pfffffew! Did you know there are as many stairs down to the ground as there are up to the roof?”

White listened contentedly to the continued chatter of his team as he rounded the corner. Ahead, he saw an older woman walking towards him. A quick eye-scan of her body on instinct from years of training and experience took in her expensive wool, grey coat, Coach, black leather bag, heels and long white hair hanging over her thin, pointed face and elected her as non-threatening. Though her placement in a back alley was suspicious enough for him to be on guard.

White’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he paused his stride to look at it. Eyes wide, his head shot up just as four silenced bullets slammed into his chest.

The sound of the shots reverberating through his body echoed through the com-link and all light-hearted conversation halted.

“What just happened? White?”

“White, sir, respond.”

“Blue! Blue, do you have a visual? What’s his location?” 

“I lost visual when he turned the corner to the rendezvous Pink! I have no visual! I’m coming down.”

“I’m coming too!”

“No Green, stay where you are, you understand me? White? White, acknowledge!”

The woman caught White as he slumped forward. Almost gently, the woman held him sitting up, hand softly around his neck as she fired three more shots into his ribs. She rose and let him fall, her face void of either pleasure or pain. She hooked the satchel around her own shoulder, disappearing from White’s sight as blackness puffed around the edges of his eyes like food colouring, her heels clicking against the concrete becoming the last thing he ever heard.

Meanwhile, the coms were frantic, the voices of the team desperate for some kind, any kind of confirmation from their leader.

“White? White, please!”

“Say something! Anything!”

“White?”

“White!”

“Alfor!”


	2. Five Months Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takashi Shirogane is rescued from prison by a most unusual team.

Tick tick clack.

Tick tick clack.

The rhythm echoed down the empty, cement halls of Renkow Prison. Some of the guards watched the screens through half closed eyes in their guard rooms while some had their head against their chest, snoring lightly in the early hours of the morning. 

Tick tick clack.

Tick tick clack.

A hand caught the cement piece, more from instinct than any form of focus, and tossed it lazily again. It bounced off the facing wall and then the side wall of the single cell before being caught by the hand again. 

Tick tick clack. 

Suddenly there was a deep throated beep and the cell door swung open inward.

Takashi Shirogane turned and blinked. 

Getting up, he returned the smoothed cement piece to its place in the wall as he walked slowly out of the cell. It was completely quiet.

Looking up and down the hallway, Takashi bent over the railing in front of him, below revealed the deadly seven story drop and the rest of the cells and their own hallways with metal railings running the length of the prison. Grabbing the railing of his own floor, Takashi swung up and over, flinging himself down onto the next level below, his bare feet making no noise as he landed. 

Ahead of him, at the other end of the hallway, a door leading to a staircase opened with another deep throated beep. As it swung, a song started blaring over the PA system. Takashi looked unfazed as Frank Sinatra began singing The Way You Look Tonight and walked towards the door, “Someday, when I’m awfully low, when the world is cold...”

He stopped suddenly, as if remembering something, debated the decision for but a moment, and then turned and walked the other way.

“Wait wait- what’s he doing?” 

An electrician’s van was parked in the shadows, outside of the jail. Close enough to be within sight, but far enough away as to not to draw attention. 

The glow from multiple screens from multiple computers and laptops showing the jail cameras and security systems bathed two faces in a white sheen. 

One camera feed showed Takashi Shirogane walking down the hallway towards a secure door and a guard room that lead to more cells.

“Yes, you’re lovely, with your smile so warm, and your cheeks so soft...” The song sang on.

“What is he doing?” a second voice asked, leaning further onto the first speaker’s larger figure hunched over the computers to see better.

“He- I mean... Do I listen to him Blue?” 

“I would do what he’s asking, but I’m not allowed on the computers yet.” A bitter voice spoke up from their feet.

“Just this last mission Green, then Pink said she’d let you back in the chair.” The first speaker’s voice was soft.

“She has yet to promise Yellow, and until I get some sort of guarantee, I’m not satisfied.”

“And this is why we don’t take you Christmas shopping.” Blue patted Green’s head, narrowly avoiding a swat. 

By now, the other monitors showed the guards working confusedly to find out where the music was coming from. It wouldn’t be long now before the fake camera feeds were discovered and Takashi was exposed.

Takashi came to the door and made a whirling motion with his finger above his head. Open the door. 

“No Takashi, I’m not opening the door. Turn around.” Yellow said to the screen. Green stood up now and leaned over Yellow, standing beside Blue.

Takashi looked at the camera feed and made the motion again, this time jabbing at the door after with the finger. 

“No! Takashi, go to the extraction point- no! No! N-I know what that means, but I need to follow- Go to the extraction point!” 

“It doesn’t look like screaming at the computer is going to help any Yellow...”

“Ya, Blue, no shit.” Green hissed, hunching further over the computer, quickly pressing a few buttons, locking the guard rooms.

“Thanks.” Yellow said, “And language.”

Blue slapped Green upside the head lightly, “Listen to Yellow. You have to put a dollar in the swear jar now. Or, I suppose, a ruble... a few rubles- what’s the exchange rate?”

Takashi had now taken to leaning against the railing, hand on hip. The guards in the guard room had seen him and were desperately working to get out of their suddenly ironic captivity. Takashi raised his eyebrows at them and shook his head, motioning towards the camera like he couldn’t believe what was happening either. 

An alarm was finally sounded. The jail was on lockdown. 

“What’s going on?” A female voice sounded over the van com system, “Why is the alarm going off so early?”

“Sorry Pink, but Takashi is suddenly on another mission here!” Yellow said, typing furiously. Blue leaned on Green to get a closer look at the computer, ignoring the grunt of protest.

“As long as he’s where he needs to be when the song ends, give him what he wants.” Pink said, voice a little strained.

Green raised her hands, gesturing to herself dramatically. 

Just as Takashi shook his fist at the camera, Yellow shook his head towards the van ceiling, “Alright, alright, fine. Fine. There you go, fine.” 

“Won’t you please arrange it? Cause I love you, just the way you look tonight.”  
The door beeped opened and Takashi elegantly signed ‘thank you’ to the camera. He motioned with two fingers on his eyes and then pointed at himself. Eyes on me. And walked quickly through. 

Knowing exactly where he was going, Takashi began walking down the hallway. Suddenly, three guards in riot gear burst through the stairwell. Takashi stopped, took in the situation and charged them. Leaping against the wall, he came down on the first guard from above, bashing him back and ducking low against the swinging baton. Using the momentum instead of his bare skin against the hard armour, he then burst up and pushed the other guard back into the third, the two collapsing in a pile. Takashi turned on the first, shoving him against the railing and flipping him, sending him up and over, falling to the ground six stories below. 

Takashi turned to the nearest camera as the two guards began to rise. Takashi moved past them, waving his arm at a door and it opened obediently. As expected, the jail mates within had heard the song and were eager to see what the commotion was about. Spilling out of the door, the inmates lost no time descending upon the guards. 

Takashi took a second to wince at the unfortunate guards’ fates before running into the cell. He had to back out immediately as an enormous giant of a prisoner walked forward, towering over Takashi, who was neither short nor unimpressive but looked like a child in front of the boorish prisoner. Stepping back until he was against the railing, Takashi looked towards the guards, then back at the prisoner, raising his eyebrows. The prisoner huffed like some sort of bull and stomped towards the already thoroughly bashed guards.

Takashi then rushed into the cell, looking around, “Rollo? Rollo!”

A tall, shaggy haired man with a long, pointy nose, looking not unlike a stick bug, raised his head from behind a cot, “Sven?”

“Come! Time to go!” Takashi urged in Russian.

“Now?” Rollo’s eyes bugged out.

“Da, da, now! Come on!”

Slowly, Rollo descended back behind the cot but Takashi caught him by the scruff of his shirt and shoved him out of the cell. Pushing Rollo into a run, Takashi moved them away from the fight with the guards, who had probably been unconscious for a while now, to the other end of the hall and the awaiting flight of stairs. As Takashi opened the door, he was greeted with an entire unit of guards in full riot armour thundering up the stairs. Turning around so fast, Rollo stumbled over his own feet, Takashi made eye contact with a camera. Whirling his finger above his head, he began running as he shouted to be heard over the music, “Open all of them!”

Every cell door in the hallway opened with a buzz of low beeps and prisoners flooded out to meet the guards. 

Taking advantage of the full blown prison riot, Takashi raced through the prisoners ahead of him, making his way to the opposite stairwell at the other end of the guard room. The prisoners, already excited from the previous fight, turned to rush the unit coming out of the stairs. Either by mistake or adrenalin, a few of them decided to try and attack Takashi as well. 

Takashi ducked as a punch came at his face. Rollo was not so lucky, taking the full punch to the nose. The Russian cried out as blood came rushing out between his fingers as he cradled his probably broken nose. Takashi punched the prisoner right back and shoved him against the others directly behind. Being in such close quarters, the others tumbled against each other like bowling pins. 

“The laugh that wrinkles your nose, it touches my foolish heart...”

Dragging the now whimpering Rollo past the guard room the way he had originally come, Takashi skidded to a stop as another unit charged through the stair doors. Right on cue, the doors opened in another round of beeps and Takashi charged with the rest of the prisoners at the guards. 

Chaos was complete as the two sides met and Takashi ducked and swung punches at guards and prisoners alike. Finally making it to the door, Takashi ducked a baton and shoved Rollo against the railing of the hallway, almost toppling him over. Batting the baton away and shoving the guard against the open stair door with a well aimed kick to the chest, Takashi grabbed Rollo by the scruff of his shirt and charged down the stairs. 

Reaching the bottom of the stairwell, Takashi burst through a basement door into a sort of abandoned cellar full of pipes and glistening, wet walls.

“Won’t you please arrange it? Cause I love you, a-just the way you look tonight...”

Rollo finally found his footing and he looked around, the beginnings of panic filling his voice as he turned to Takashi, his nose still obviously paining him as his words garbled shrilly, “Oh Gob. Ohgobohgobohgob! Sven, blease dell me dat dere is more do your blan dan dis?”

“Mm, mm, mm, mm, just the way you look tonight.”

As if in answer, the song came to its finale and the ground below them began to shake. Takashi swung Rollo out of the way just in time for the floor to disappear in front of them, crumbling into a perfectly circular hole. Rollo peered down and almost got his nose completely cut off as a wire shot up from the mysterious depths, embedding in the ceiling. 

Takashi grabbed a bundle of grips that were tossed up and clicked them onto the wire. Wordlessly, he held onto one and wrapped his foot around the other, showing Rollo how he was to descend into the hole. Rollo looked at him incredulously but obeyed to the best of his abilities. 

Rollo landed in an undignified heap as Takashi slid down after him, landing lightly beside his prisonmate. 

“Agent Shirogane?”

He turned towards the accented question to see an elegant face hooded by a dark cap, cool blue eyes examining his own. 

“And you are?” he asked.

Taken aback for a moment, the woman spoke slowly, “Agent Altea.”

“Okay.” Takashi directed Rollo towards a rounded tunnel that lead to the sewers and obviously their way out.

“Who is your friend?” Agen Altea’s voice spoke up behind him as she followed him out.

“I’ll tell you on the way.” He said, looking back at her, “Did you set up the explosives?”

Agent Altea looked slightly insulted, but nodded, “Of course.” 

Takashi nodded back, “Light the fuse.”

 

The sun was just rising into a grey sky as the electrical van sped along a highway. A seemingly endless line of emergency vehicles were passing them the opposite way, racing towards the jail. 

“Sven, what’s going on?” Rollo was looking around at the odd company of people packed into the back of the van.

“It’s okay Rollo, they’re with me.” Takashi answered as Agent Altea pressed an eye scanner to his face. For “protocol” she had stated when he protested. When she lowered it, Takashi also finally took in the company he was now with.

Beside him, finishing up the eye scan, and now grabbing his hand to press his thumb to a print scanner, was Agent Altea, obviously Team Leader. Below the jail, she had been in the dark and her head had been covered by a low hat. She had since taken it off to reveal shockingly white hair done up in a pony tail that swished in natural curves around her neck and back. Her accent suggested a British upbringing but her skin tone hinted at a more African ancestry. She was angular and tall, even taller than him, which he was seldom used to. But she gave him a half smile when she glanced up at him from the print scan. 

“I don’t mean to bring up the elephant in the room, but what’s with the tall, skinny Russian?”

Takashi looked quickly away from Agent Altea towards the voice, seeing it belonged to a young man, still a teenager by the looks of it, with dark brown hair and sharp features, peering around from the passenger seat of the van. He looked Latino, probably Cuban but had little to no accent. He probably grew up in the Agency since he was young. As a matter of fact, they all looked young. Incredibly young. Takashi only saw the back of the head of the man driving, but he looked about the same age as the other. Orange headband tied around longer hair with dark, muscled arms showing through short sleeves. He turned to a clicking noise beside Agent Altea that he only now noticed. His heart suddenly lurched to his throat as a bespectacled face turned up to his. She had the same wavy hair, about the same shoulder length too, same honey coloured eyes, same mouth set in a determined line, and, quiznack, same nose even.

Takashi suddenly realized he had yet to answer the passenger’s question, “Oh, Rollo?” he cleared his throat, “He sent me intel, if I left him in jail, he would have been killed so we’re going to give him his freedom.” He eyed the company over again, “Were the sweepers called?”

The driver answered in a youthful, husky voice, “Yup, they’re on their way.”

“Good... good.” Takashi faded as he suddenly realized who these kids were.

“Wait. Are you guys Voltron? The Team Voltron? How...wha- h-how is it you’re here?” He grew excited.

“Well, we passed the field exam like every other agent and, woop! Here we are, responding to missions. Like every other agent.” 

Takashi was surprised at the biting tone of the young girl. Her light brown eyes were narrowed but confidant, much like someone else he knew. He realized, suddenly embarrassed, that they must get patronising questions like that all the time.

“Sorry,” Takashi shook memories back into the corner of his mind, “I didn’t mean it like tha-mmgf.” Takashi grabbed Agent Altea’s wrist that was holding a DNA testing prod that had been suddenly shoved into his mouth, “It’s me.”

“It’s protocol.” She wrestled her hand back with surprising strength and continued with the test.

“U’re ‘ery forough.” Takashi deadpanned with the testing prod raking his gums none too gently.

“Sven?” Rollo finally spoke up again, eyes darting back and forth warily, “You are not Russian?” he finished in English.

“Sweepers approaching.” The driver called back and Agent Altea finished up the DNA samples.

“Roger that.” Takashi grabbed the awaiting gun from Agent Altea and loaded it with the appropriate dart as the van slowed down.

“Are you not Sven?” Rollo leaned closer.

Takashi turned and fired the dart at Rollo’s neck. The man gave a sort of squawk and pulled the dart out, looking at it like it had betrayed him. 

The van slowed to a halt as the doors opened to a similar van with awaiting agents inside. Before Takashi handed Rollo over, he cupped the man’s face in his hand, trying to get one last word in before the drug took over, 

“Hey, hey, Rollo, hey, I always take care of my friends okay?”

Rollo’s eyes rolled back in his head as he lost consciousness, his last words, “My friends...”, were slurred and muffled as he fell back into the awaiting arms of the sweeper agents.

It was done in less than six seconds. 

The van doors closed and the vehicle pulled back onto the highway.

“That was messy, bringing him along.” Agent Altea raised an eyebrow at him.

“I thought it went rather well.” Takashi smiled.

“Want to tell me what you were doing in a Russian prison?” She asked.

“Want to tell me why you broke me out?” He asked.

“Wait, this wasn’t a rescue mission?” The passenger asked, his head shooting around the seat. 

Takashi shrugged, “Well, let me put it this way, if the Director didn’t want me in there, it must be pretty bad out here.” 

The young man’s eyes shone in admiration as he began slapping the driver’s arm with the back of his hand. 

“By the way, Mr Shirogane, Sir, you’ve been Lance’s hero since we heard about in first year at the Agency.” The driver looked at Takashi through the rear-view mirror. “I mean, the youngest agent to pass the Paladin tests, and the one who single handily- erm... no pun intended sir- took down the Galra human trafficking ring in Eastern Europe? I mean, Mr Shirogane, sir, it really is our honour.”

“Call me Shiro.” Shiro said, and extending his hand for the young passenger to shake.

“I’m Lance. Lance McLain, sharpshooter extraordinaire.” Lance said, a dazzling smile lighting up his face, “This is Hunk Garret, our weapons engineer and that’s Katie Holt our tech wizard, but we all call her Pidge.”

“Hunk.” Shiro nodded at the driver and he smiled back through the mirror, “Katie.” He offered her his hand.

Katie looked at it for a second before taking it in her own, which Shiro now realized was covered in a soft black leather glove with material tips for electronic access. Shiro was curious. He didn’t think that gloves like that were a part of teenage fashion. But to each their own. He was just relieved Katie shook his hand. A lot of people were put off that he only had one arm, but he suspected her pause was more suspicion on her part rather than any awkwardness towards his disability. 

“Like he said, call me Pidge.” She looked Shiro in the eyes as if daring him to do otherwise. But she said it with a soft smile.

Shiro then turned to Agent Altea, “Agent Altea?” he extended the hand again.

“Allura. Allura Altea, team leader of Voltron.”

Lance moved to become more comfortable looking behind from the front seat, “So you’ve heard of Team Voltron?”

Shiro nodded, “The youngest team to come out of AIS. But if I’m completely honest, I never pictured you all to be so young.”

“Eh, no one ever does.” Lance waved his hand like it was no big deal.

Shiro looked around, “So you’re team leader?” Allura nodded, “I thought Alfor was the Voltron team leader, at least, I knew he formed the team.”

Allura’s eyes suddenly shimmered with an emotion Shiro hadn’t seen yet and everyone looked to the ground suddenly. 

Shiro grew serious, “Where is he?” but he had already guessed the answer.

Allura took a deep breath, suddenly looking utterly and hopelessly lost. Shiro had to resist the urge to put his arm around her, 

“We were after a file, and we lost it.”

“’We’ as in Alfor too?” Shiro asked softly when Allura didn’t continue right away.

“It was a letter drop of a classified file.” Allura continued after a few seconds, “Should have been a simple intercept. I had just joined Team Voltron as a sort of evaluator for the Director. The team’s first year review was only days away after all. 

“We knew which train the currier was on and the files we were after, but the one thing we didn’t know was who the currier was. I was on the train and interrogated the name from some of the accomplices and Pidge sent the name to Alfor’s lens cam. Alfor dropped the mark and grabbed his bag. He had the files in his hands. Easy in, easy out.

“But we weren’t the only ones after it. Alfor took care of them with help from Lance in the watchtower but he disappeared from view to get to the rendezvous. His lense cam drew a facial match and triggered a warning, but it was too late. We converged around his last location to see him lying on the ground. Seven bullet holes in his chest. He didn’t stand a chance after one, and she fired seven. 

“It was my op. I specifically asked Alfor for it to be. I put him in the field. And she left him just alive enough for us to see him die.”

Shiro looked around at the faces before him. Allura’s eyes glinted, but with the bite of revenge rather than the pain of grief. Lance was sucking his lower lip and staring at the seat fabric. Hunk was wiping away a few tears and Katie’s jaw was tight as she stared at her screen, her busy fingers were wrapped around each other and she was staring at them vacantly. 

“I’m sorry.” Shiro breathed. And he meant it. Alfor was one of his mentors when he arrived at the AIS and he spent many missions with the kind, spunky man. Many long evenings talking things out with him. Laughing over mistakes, crying through accidents. He may not have seen him in years, but Alfor was- had been- one of his best friends.

“He- he was my mentor, and I know he was your father.” Shiro whispered. He couldn’t talk any louder for fear of his voice breaking. He looked at Allura who met his eyes with a ferocity that reminded him of a lioness. 

Some sort of instinct buried within him made Shiro’s eyes turn back to Katie. How could she, who couldn’t be much more than fourteen or fifteen, see something so life changing. He knew what the sight of a dead body could shake someone to the core, let alone someone you know, let alone a probable father figure. 

Katie looked up at him, as if sensing his thoughts, “I didn’t get to see him you know. I was in the van. Like I always am.” 

“Like you’re always ordered to be.” Allura said, glaring, “You rarely actually stay put.”

“Because you never let me go out into the field!” Katie slammed her laptop closed. “I can’t believe you didn’t let me see him. He was our team leader. Everyone else got to, and I’m the only one who never got to see his face again!”

“You should be glad Hunk held you back. That carnage was not for you to see.” Allura faced Katie head on.

“That was not your decision to make!” Katie’s voice was shrill.

“It is now!” Allura sat up straighter, suddenly growing calmer, but there was an added weight to her voice, “I know very well I’m your last choice for team leader. We’ve had this same argument enough for it to be obvious, but it is my father who is dead. I am trying to run this team as best I can and I’m sorry if I am not as good as he was, but no one can be as good as he was, so you’re stuck with me.”

There was a long stretch of silence in the van and Katie sat back in her corner, avoiding eye contact, still simmering, though not boiling over anymore.

Allura took a deep breath, all emotion fading from her face as she handed Shiro a phone with a screenshot of a woman’s face. The woman was very slim and older, but it was hard to guess an age, and Shiro was usually very good at that. She could have been as young as her late forties or as old as her late seventies. She had long, straight white hair and yellow coloured eyes that were bright and alert, but the shade of yellow looked off. Like it should be a vibrant, sunny yellow, or a pale, soft yellow, but instead, they were sickly, dead looking. It was unsettling to say the least and Shiro felt his gut tighten as memories of that poisonous yellow and a nauseating purple flashed in front of his eyes. 

“You know her.” It wasn’t a question.

Shiro licked his lips and nodded, forcing himself to focus on the phone, “Honerva Haggar. High ranking Galra member and freelance assassin. Tends to favour electrocution. Works for diamonds and the rare gem, quintessence.” 

Shiro looked back at the others. Hunk was continuously glancing back in the rear-view mirror, Lance had gone back to facing forward, though he was still listening with a tilted head, and Katie hadn’t reopened her laptop but was busily tapping on her phone.

“What was in the files?” He asked.

Allura paused for a moment, then looked him in the eye but still didn’t say anything.

Shiro leaned forward, eyebrows raised, urging her to say more.

Allura exhaled, “Russian nuclear launch codes.”

Shiro blinked and sat back, the weight of such a failure washing over him. Running his hand through his hair, he glanced around, noticing all eyes were on him again as he took a deep breath,

“As you know, the AIS continually track the extremist terrorist organization, the Galra. We know Haggar works directly with their leader who calls himself Zarkon. We all know this.”

“And how much do you know about Zarkon?” Allura asked.

“As much as you do now.” Shiro shrugged, “But you can bet that if Haggar has nuclear launch codes in her possession, Zarkon will have them in his within the week. It will only be a matter of how much she wants for them and where the exchange will take place. Just because she’s a high ranking member, doesn’t mean she does what she does for free, even for Zarkon.”

“We’re here.” Hunk called from the front.

Pulling over to the side of the road, Shiro opened the van door and walked over to a graffiti covered pay phone. Allura followed him out, as did Katie but she remained leaning against the side of the van, talking to Lance, who had also gotten out, and Hunk who had moved over a seat to hang out the window. 

Shiro walked over to the pay phone with Allura right behind him. He picked up the phone and tapped in a six digit code into the dial pad. The box opened for an eye scan. Once both he and Allura had completed it, the message began. Shiro had to hold the phone so that both he and Allura could hear. He made sure to focus on the phone’s speaker, even counting the little round holes so not to concentrate so much on Allura’s soft breathing a mere foot away from his cheek.

“Good afternoon Agent Shirogane, Agent Altea. In your absence, AIS has learned something that has changed the tide of the war against the Galra: Zarkon was once a nuclear strategist for Russia during the Cold War. Therefore, the only way to discover his actual identity and skill set is to infiltrate the Kremlin itself.”

Both Shiro and Allura raised their eyebrows at that.

“In order to get past Kremlin check points, Agent Shirogane, you will be impersonating General Federov Anatoly. He shares your unique disability and the likeness is passable. We believe that Zarkon will do whatever he can to erase any knowledge of his real identity. Your mission is to penetrate the highly secure archive inside the Kremlin and retrieve Zarkon’s file before he can destroy it. New intel says that Zarkon is already en rout leaving you: Four Hours, Fifty Seven Minutes to infiltrate. To save time, we are assigning you to Team Voltron. Agent Altea, as you have already met, is Voltron team leader and will be under your command for this mission. As always, should you, or any member of your team be caught or killed, the Director will disavow any knowledge of your existence.”

Shiro glanced back at the three teenagers talking by the van. Lance was leaning against the front door wearing pale jeans, a grey hoodie and a stylish dark blue jacket with high top converse and talking animatedly. Hunk was resting his head on his arms over the door window and talking to Lance with his head cocked sideways, smiling warmly. Katie was sitting against the open back door of the van, her gloved hands busy on her phone and leg swinging over the edge with her jeans rolled up and baggy on her lithe frame, her foot too short to touch the ground. Shiro was suddenly struck that they were agents. Actual fully fledged, in the field, AIS agents. The same kind that would be disavowed by the Director if caught or killed. It was incredible at best, horrific at worst.

“This message will self destruct in five seconds. Good luck Team Voltron.” The message concluded. 

Shiro hung up the phone and both he and Allura walked away.

Nothing happened.

Shiro glanced at Allura and sighed. Allura turned back and pounded the machine with her fist. With an electrical sizzle and a puff of smoke, the box huffed out a rather pathetic whine as the message was destroyed. 

Shiro and Allura walked back to the team, who ceased their chatter and straightened up as they approached, 

“So what’s happening?” asked Katie.

“We’re going into the Kremlin.” said Allura.

Two mouths dropped open. 

Hunk chuckled as they all loaded back into the van, “I thought you said the Kremlin.” When no one corrected him, he said it louder, facing the back, “I thought you said the Kremlin!” Shiro tightened his lips. Allura just cocked her head.

“Oh.” Hunk breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang that was a long one haha! But will probably be about the average length for most of the chapters- you lucky duckies :P  
> Thank you so for reading!  
> Let me know what you think so far - do you think the Paladin peeps are in character? Any kind of interaction you want to see in the future? I have it written already but editing exists for a reason ;)  
> Please leave kudos as well!  
> Thanks again all!


	3. A Most Peculiar Pawn Shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team learns of their mission in Russia's sketchiest pawn shop... and that's saying something.

Hunk tried to match Lance’s wide grin, but to no avail.

Lance had turned towards him, practically vibrating in his seat. Hunk understood Lance’s excitement; after all, it was Takashi Shirogane. The Takashi Shirogane. The legendary paladin was sitting just behind him in the back of the van! 

Hunk could hardly believe it himself.

Lance’s leg began to bounce to an unstoppable beat as Hunk looked in the rear-view mirror. Again. Was he doing it too much? He was probably doing it too much. But he couldn’t help it. As much as Lance was the number one Shiro fanboy, Hunk had also admired the man since they learned about his successes in first year at the academy. And he was very nice so far, asking them questions, curious about who they were. He might have had the run of the mill shock at their ages at first, like everyone did, but he seemed to be over it now, talking excitedly to Allura and Pidge in the back as they drove. 

Finally approaching the provided coordinates to retrieve supplies, Hunk pulled the van over into a parking lot beside what appeared to be the sketchiest looking pawn shop in Russia. And that was saying something.

Hunk parked the van and everyone got out. He stepped gingerly, testing the weight of his right leg before completely getting out of the vehicle. There was a dull ache, but no severe pain. Just enough to remind him that something was still not completely right with the knee quite yet.

Lance stepped out of the van, took one look at the shop, and curled his lip, “Really, Allura, is this what it’s come to?”

“We’re meeting a supplier in person at their own storehouse this time Lance, be polite.” Allura admonished, though not unkindly, walking in the front entrance. 

Shiro, who was about to follow Allura, turned back to them and grinned, “Let me know who finds the sketchiest item.”

A crooked smile spread across Pidge and Lance’s face and the pair raced through the front door. Hunk followed close behind. They could go in and find things while he took his time through the shop. He was feeling more curious than competitive right now anyway. 

Stepping through the front entrance, Hunk sniffed in disgust and promptly sneezed. It smelled like the inside of a rotten tree filled with dead flies in the middle of a swamp; and he did not need to be reminded why he knew what that smelt like.

Rows upon displays upon cabinets upon shelves were lined with anything and everything. Most things were weapons, or could be considered weapons. Lance was definitely standing in front of an entire glass cabinet full of switchblades. 

The store was lit about as well as it smelled. Hunk walked over to his friend. He knew that, though Lance’s eyesight had fully returned, he still had some trouble seeing in darker settings, like this dusty, damp should-be-closed-for-violating-hundreds-of-safety-codes shack. 

Other than because they needed the adequate supplies to infiltrate the quiznacking Kremlin, Hunk had no idea why they were here, specifically. It wasn’t that he was nervous. Heck, he had infiltrated dozens of highly secure facilities in the past year. Easy peasy lemon squeezie. He just had never infiltrated one of the most highly secure fortifications on the continent that was also the residence of the President of Russia before.

Okay, so he was nervous. 

Pidge had long since disappeared behind a pile of 90s computer junk, but Hunk stuck close to Lance. 

“So what’s his deal then?” he asked in a low voice.

Lance looked up from a very rusty looking knife that maybe-probably still had some blood on it, blinking a bit too much, “Who, Shiro?”

Hunk nodded, “Ya, why do you think he was in jail? He was a top paladin agent. You wrote, like, every essay on him and he suddenly ends up in Renkow Prison with apparently no plan to escape anytime soon?”

Lance pressed his lips together, and shut his eyes, resting them, “I heard he lost his team and was taken by the Galra, but then escaped.”

“So why would he be in a Russian prison?” Hunk furrowed his brow.

Lance just rubbed his eyes with the back of his sleeve and shrugged, playing it cool, but Hunk could tell it was bugging him too. Hunk took his friend’s wrist gently, stopping the rubbing that would only irritate his eyes. Lance gave him a glance and shoved his hands in his pockets. 

Hunk leaned on the cabinet. It groaned with an ominous cracking and he immediately backed off.

“I heard there were rumours of an unsanctioned hit after his escape from the Galra.” Pidge popped up, startling the two, adjusting her glasses the way she did when she was divulging information.

“Quiznack, Pidge, we told you not to sneak up like that.” Lance put a hand to his chest.

Pidge narrowed her eyes at Lance for a second, then softened, realizing he probably didn’t see her coming. She then looked to the ground, her voice soft, “Honestly, it just proves how good I would be in the field if Allura actually trusted me enough.”

Lance smiled softly, rubbing her shoulders. Hunk always admired Lance’s ability to tell when Pidge appreciated physical affection and when she didn’t. This didn’t mean that Lance paid much attention to said ability- more than a few bruises and fading bite marks could attest to that. 

Lance pulled her closer and Pidge didn’t resist.

“Pidge, no one doubts that you would be amazing, but I don’t think it is about Allura not trusting you. I think it’s more about Allura not trusting herself.”

Pidge frowned but Hunk joined in, “That’s true you know. Look, I’m sorry Pidge, but you are the youngest and Alfor didn’t even let you go out in the field. I think Allura is just not sure when would be a good time if even her father hadn’t known.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Pidge looked down and fiddled with her sweatshirt hem. “Should I apologize?” 

Hunk shrugged his shoulders up to his ears, “Probably, but you’d better do it soon.”

“Ya, cause once the mission starts, it’ll be all go go go! Pow pow pow! You know?” Lance paused mid shooting pose.

Pidge just raised an eyebrow, “Sure.”

Lance winked at her and straightened, turning to investigate a cabinet. 

Hunk was growing a little impatient so he turned to the back of the store as he tried to get a glimpse of where Shiro and Allura were at. 

He saw them at the store’s rear desk, speaking to the owner, who looked familiar...

Hunk squinted through the dusty gloom of the shop as the man moved and he got a better view of his face. Hunk suddenly brightened and grabbed Lance’s arm, dragging his friend with him as he charged up the isle towards the desk, knowing Pidge would follow. He’d recognize that orange moustache anywhere!

Lance soon also recognized the unmistakable face of their favourite missions supplier, “Coran, Coran, our right hand man! Where did you come from dude?” Lance barreled up to the desk and right into Coran’s awaiting arms. 

Hunk had to admit, the man gave some pretty good hugs. Hunk Garrett prided himself on very few things, but his hugs were one of them. Coran came in a very close second. 

“Lance! I thought I saw you browsing my blades in the corner.” Coran twirled his meticulously waxed and shaped mustachio with expert fingers. Actually, Coran was one of the few men he had seen who actually had facial hair that could be called a ‘mustachio’. It really could not be called anything else. 

Hunk hugged Coran after Lance had let go, “Blades, bullets and, I don’t know, probably little black cartoon bombs too? What even is this place? I had no idea you had a store this side of the Baltic.”

 

Pidge came up behind Hunk and Coran held out a fist for her to pump and they made exploding sounds as they drew their hands away. 

Coran then turned to the group again, “I’m your operations supplier my boy. If I don’t own a few stores here and there, how will I ever get you the equipment you’ll need?”

Pidge side-eyed Coran, “Um, you’ll send us a location to pick up our stuff from a side- supplier like you always do? Honestly Coran, it’s almost as if you like this flea ridden scrap shop.”

Coran put a hand on his chest dramatically, stepping back a few paces, his face the picture of injured dignity, “My dear Agent, I am a man of gentile qualities and the highest of breeding. That you would suggest that I, Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe, coranic extraordinaire, would willingly partake in these filthy, festering places of festered filth... then you’d be abso-quiznacking-lootly correct!”

Allura was smiling, “Very well, you filthy festerer, you had just told us you had the uniforms almost ready?” 

Coran turned back to Allura and Shiro, “Ah, right. I do indeed, they are only in need of the necessary fitting adjustments and then they shall be finished.” He turned to walk through a curtain, beckoning them all to follow, “Right, this way please.” 

Hunk followed behind Allura and Shiro. He had always loved Coran. The man was like that one crazy uncle everyone had. The one you didn’t see all that often, but when you did, you got amazing presents from around the world. Only, this uncle was actually Allura’s uncle, and he gave much more awesome presents than souvenirs or t-shirts. Like exploding pens or super glue chewing gum, or password hacking software, or a satellite GPS that could track a certain type of fabric. He was their very own Q. 

“So who’s getting the fitting?” Lance asked as he ducked under the curtain Hunk was holding open for him and Pidge to the back room. Hunk let the curtain drop in a puff of dust and looked around at the smaller room. It was just as cluttered and as dusty and as random as the front, but most things seemed to be themed towards a tailor’s shop. Except for an odd looking glass case in one corner with, what was that, wings? Feathered wings inside? Hunk gave up. He couldn’t keep marveling or he’d lose his mind and he sure wouldn’t be able to find it again in this mess.

“The uniforms are for Shiro and you, my dear boy, so I hear.” Coran’s voice was muffled, his face buried deep in a wardrobe.

Hunk turned to Lance with a wide grin. Lance’s mouth was clamped shut, his lips stretching so wide in a smile, his eyes almost disappeared. It was probably the only thing stopping him from whooping in delight, but not from letting out a high pitched squeak of excitement.

Shiro turned to Lance, face smiling, “Looks like you’ll have to pull out that third year Russian from the Agency.”

“Konechna! Bez problem.” Lance waved him away.

“You just said, ‘is finite’ instead of ‘of course’” Pidge whispered loudly behind Lance.  
Lance’s face turned pink as he corrected himself, “Oh, uh, sorry, konechno. Bez problem.” 

“Luckily, you probably won’t have to say too much as a corporal following a general.” Shiro said, gripping Lance affectionately on the shoulder. 

Lance smiled weakly and Hunk felt for his friend. Lance was usually really good at impersonations. He knew Lance loved playing new roles and pretending to be someone else, being dramatic and badass and everything, but he had to work hard at different languages, especially the eastern European ones. Most Romance languages he excelled at from being bilingual growing up, but even Hunk had to admit that quiznack, Russian was hard! 

“Aaaand, here they are!” Coran popped back outside the wardrobe, swishing two Russian military uniforms, “As you can see, the jacket is reversible, ready to be switched into civilian mode and the pants’ stripes can easily be torn away to become plain, black pants. There are glasses in the side pockets as well as Kremlin issued maps to complete the tourist ensemble.” 

Lance took the jacket from Coran and shed his own, tossing it to Hunk, who caught it against his shoulder. Trying it on, Lance straightened it out. 

“It actually fits great Coran.” He said, opening the wardrobe to find a mirror. Finding one on the inside of the door, Lance turned this way and that, admiring himself, “Hey Allura, did you always love a man in uniform?” he asked. Hunk rolled his eyes and turned to where Allura was helping Shiro put his uniform on. 

Hunk couldn’t help noticing with amusement that she was dusting it straight a little too thoroughly. Pidge seemed to have the same mindset as she turned and met his eyes, eyebrows lifted. 

“Pidge, my darling, a little birdie told me you were eager to be out on the field?” Coran stepped back to the wardrobe to pull something out. Hunk grinned at Pidge, who, he swore, suddenly had sparking stars in her eyes. Allura looked like she was about to protest, then she saw Pidge’s sunshine bright face and closed her mouth, a fond smile ghosting her lips.

“Well, here you go!” and Coran handed her a big green balloon.

“You can’t be serious Coran.” Pidge immediately deflated.

“Oh absolutely! The camera attached to the bottom of the balloon is also the hacking interface so that our fake general here,” Coran slapped Shiro’s broad shoulder, then disappeared back into the wardrobe, “can pass any identification scans with his ID. The reason for the balloon is that we actually need to be close to the computer interface to hack into the identification mainframe. There’s a chimney that you’ll have to pop this balloon over that is right beside it.”

“But a balloon?”

“Aaand overalls!” Coran popped out of the wardrobe and danced the dark green corduroy clothing over to Pidge, who was looking more and more horrified, “You’re going to be inside in the Kremlin’s courtyard with your guardian, Kera Karchovic.” Here, Coran put his arm around Allura, who tried to look enthusiastic about the arrangement. Hunk felt for her. He did. Pidge was a bit of a handful at times, especially when she was in a grumpy mood. Not one to keep her emotions inside, Pidge had made it clear on several occasions what she thought of Allura’s leadership style. Allura, for her part, was very strict. Not that that was a bad thing per se, but Allura’s firm leadership style often clashed with Pidge’s spontaneity. Add a rather patronizing balloon and corduroy overalls to the mix and someone was bound to lose their cool eventually. It was just a matter of when.

“Hunk, you will be communications and backup. You’ll be parked in the electrical van after it has a makeover beside the Kremlin parking lot. You will also have to be out in electricians gear, as the Kremlin security is a little more thorough than that of the prison.”

Hunk nodded, becoming excited, “Is there an actual problem to fix?” 

“Naturally!” Coran sang, “The grand suites of the Kremlin visitor wing have been tragically without cable or wifi for the past few hours. The electrical company will be sending someone as soon as they can. Which will be early this afternoon.” Coran indicated to Hunk.

Hunk pumped his fist to his chest, “Yus.” He breathed. 

Hunk was glad had a simple, enjoyable task this mission. He, like everyone else, were still recovering to some level from their last big ‘mission’- if it could be called that, it was unsanctioned after all- and his leg was still giving him pains. He was yet unable to sprint and fight properly, but sit and act as communications? Repair some electrical wiring? Provide backup if it came to that? He was right there. It also gave Lance and Pidge a chance to shine more, and he knew that Lance especially needed a confidence boost after being blinded for weeks not so long ago and not, as of yet, being put properly back out in the field. Pidge also really needed the distraction. Frankly, any relief from the failure of that ‘mission’ with a big, capital High Stakes mission, such as this one, was welcome as far as Hunk was concerned. It gave him the time to make sure his team was okay. 

“And, I believe that is everyone.” Coran looked around to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anyone and Hunk followed his gaze. Shiro appeared to be very calm, almost content, though Hunk noticed his hand twitching a little. Allura looked resigned to her position as ‘Pidge-sitter’. Said Pidge looked as unhappy about her circumstance as a duck in a desert and dearest Lance looked ready to float off the floor. Hunk, himself, was jittery with nerves, but what else was new? He was confident that he knew he could play his part right and his team could do theirs just as well.

“Right team Voltron,” Coran slapped his hands together, the sound snapping their attention fully back to him, “Getting in is only the first step, of course. Once Shiro and Lance reach the archive room, there’s a whole other fish to fry. Observe if you will...”

As Coran outlined the plan, the team’s eyes grew bigger with every detail. This was not going to be easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little shorter of a chapter, but the next one is where things go down *dun dun duuuun* Thank you all so much for reading! And thank you thank you so much for the kudos and comments- keep them coming!


	4. Of Officers and Balloons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team begins their infiltration on the Kremlin, but tensions between Pidge and Allura rise to a boiling point, threatening to compromise the mission before it even starts.

The Kremlin was just as grand as Lance had imagined it to be, and thrice as imposing. The bright red bricks of the fortification were stark in contrast against the green watch towers, elegant and bold in the clear afternoon light. The Spasskaya Tower scraped the sky with its sheer white spires and the golden Kremlin star shone blindingly from the sunlight. Below, the grand clock on its tower ticked slowly towards two o’clock. 

Lance was trembling with excitement. Holding a large, black bag that was designed to pass security, he walked briskly behind Shiro- erm, General Anatoly. And quiznack, did he look the part. Shiro was wearing a greying moustache, his eyebrows and hairline also dusted grey to make him appear almost thirty years older. His eyes were hooded by his military cap and he walked, well, marched was more like it, through the Arsenal as though he owned it, confidence and a commanding, military air that demanded obedience practically oozed off of him. Lance was almost put off. Shiro looked frickin’ intimidating.

Much to his chagrin, Lance was in less prosthetics, though he was wearing much more make up. Behind a pair of unattractive, circular, gold rimmed glasses that were probably made for dedushkas, his face was covered in a lighter foundation so to disguise his darker, Cuban skin. It was skilfully done (by his own hands, of course) well enough so as not to appear stark or off, but just enough to work with the disguise. His hands were not a problem as the white gloves both he and Shiro were wearing took care of hiding both their finger prints and any visible scars. 

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

Outside the Arsenal and inside the courtyard of the Kremlin with the other tourists, Allura and Pidge were wandering around, Allura with a video camera in hand, Pidge with her balloon. 

Allura had to admit, Pidge indeed looked the part of ‘little eight year old girl’ in her dark green overalls and striped brown, orange and pink shirt and shiny black dress shoes. Her balloon sealed the deal. Well, that, and the two small pony tails in green hair bands peeking out of the bottom of her fuzzy white hat. She had switched her black leather gloves for softer, white ones to match the hat. For all the discomfort and revulsion Allura could see just behind her round, baby-soft face, she had to commend Pidge for her acting skills. The tech genius was skipping around with her balloon in hand, tugging at Allura’s sleeve and pointing at the watch towers. If Allura had been one of the hundreds of tourists around, she would have been entranced by the little bright eyed, fluffy haired girl.

Pidge had just come up to her and was tugging on her sleeve again. Allura bent down to see where Pidge was pointing, following her finger to see the golden tips of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower. The signal to check that it was time to let the balloon go. 

Allura smiled fondly at Pidge and nodded, also pointing at the towers. 

Pidge smiled back and skipped around Allura, suddenly tripping over the cobble stones and falling to the ground, her balloon slipping out of her hands. Looking up in mock sadness- were those actual tears in her eyes?- Allura helped Pidge up, comforting her with cooing sounds. Pidge straightened, her disguise falling as the dread symbol of her character floated away in the breeze towards the Arsenal chimneys. 

“Can I have the camera now?” She asked, dusting her overalls off. 

Allura hesitated, knowing that she was supposed to be the one who worked the camera, but she gave in, allowing Pidge to take the device. 

They then slowly made their way to a bench, Pidge all but ignoring Allura. Her attention was now elsewhere as she closely watched the video feed off the camera in the little hacking device attached to the green balloon. 

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

Lance tried to keep his eyes straight ahead as they marched closer to the entrance but he couldn’t keep them still. He saw the decorated guards marching in their uniformed walk, guns held out, arms reaching to their noses and whooshing right back down like toy soldiers on parade. He saw the Russian flag fluttering on its tall stand, another Kremlin star poised on the tip like a Christmas tree topper. He saw the commanders and generals, stopping their conversation to stand to attention as Shiro passed, Shiro giving only the curtest of nods in response. 

Lance swelled with excitement again. This was his hero. He was on mission- a dangerous, high- maybe even the highest- level mission. He hadn’t been this excited since before... well, before their other highest level mission. Which wasn’t even a sanctioned mission so saying it was a ‘mission’ was perhaps pushing it, but no. Lance reminded himself. It had a plan, an objective, high stakes and every importance to each of them. It had been a mission. Lance’s eyes suddenly ached and he blinked, almost itching them before remembering who he was supposed to be in this moment and telling himself to suck it up. 

Lance just prayed that this mission wouldn’t end like the last one did. 

Glancing at Shiro, Lance suddenly felt calmer. Shiro seemed to ooze composure and confidence and Lance suddenly couldn’t help himself, 

“This is so exciting. Being out it the field. With you. It’s a bit of a dream. For me that is.”

Shiro glanced at Lance a few times without moving his head.

“You look great, by the way,” Lance gushed, still being sure to keep his voice at a hushed whisper, “You look just like him. It’s a shame we’re not wearing masks though. You know, like, full masks. Everyone gets to wear masks but Lance McLain. I mean, I wouldn’t want to put this face behind a piece of rubber either but, you know, it’s a mask. It’s, like, one of the reasons I joined AIS in the first place.”

Lance glanced at Shiro, who was staring at him. Lance suddenly gasped at what he had said. He had said their agency name. Out loud. On mission. In disguise. Lance sputtered out an apology, “I-I’m so sorry. I’m kinda, well, not nervous, just tense. I babble when I’m tense. Well, Pidge would say I babble all the time but I- I’m doing it again. Shut up Lance.”

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

Pidge hugged the camera close to her chest, preventing Allura from seeing the feed. Allura was becoming annoyed. She wanted to see the feed as well. Allura stopped herself. How three-years-old was that thought? Allura watched Pidge watching the video camera, eyes darting in little twitching millimetres as she followed the balloon’s position. Alert and completely absorbed. 

Allura sighed suddenly and rubbed her eyes with her hand. She had maybe had four hours sleep in the past three days. She was just tired. Heaven knows everyone was. And it wasn’t going to get much easier after this. There was still the Galra. Always the Galra. 

They had been a secret organization since pre-antiquity, making them the oldest criminal organization in the world. They had never been fully extinguished at any one moment and had recently begun an aggressive new rise in the world under their new leader, Zarkon. Over the past decade or more, the new head of the Galra criminal empire had personally orchestrated sixty-three terrorist attacks. That the AIS knew of. The Galra criminal empire itself had taken over almost every major crime syndicate in the world. It was a virus gone epidemic and it needed to stop. Allura’s father, Alfor, knew this as much as anyone. Allura had seen few others who worked with as much passion and nobility as her father to eliminate the Galra. Perhaps obsessively so. But perhaps that was what was required. 

Allura hardened her gaze. She had that passion matched. There hadn’t been a day over the past few months that she had been Team Leader for Voltron that she hadn’t devoted to finding Honerva Haggar, the Galra witch. Maybe, however, maybe that obsession had been the reason her team disobeyed her direct orders almost four months ago now and almost... Allura closed her eyes and took a breath. Past worries did the present no good. 

A strong breeze whipped Allura’s hair and she turned to Pidge, knowing that strong winds could put their entire operation at risk. She leaned closer, trying to see if the gust had affected the balloon’s course.

“Personal space Allura.” Pidge muttered without looking up.

“I just want to make sure the balloon is still on course.” Allura said.

“Of course it is. I accounted for wind, and rain, and breezes, and air quality. It’s fine.” Pidge was obviously not in a talking mood.

“I’m just trying to help.” Allura said, frowning.

“Well you’re not doing a good job of it.” Pidge growled.

Allura wasn’t sure what about that response rubbed her the exact wrong way- the tone? The underlying venom behind it? The know-it-all eye roll that she had just about enough of? Allura prided herself on her ability to remain calm, but this was not going to be one of those times. 

“You weren’t supposed to be with the video camera in the first place, but I gave it to you when you took it without so much as a please. If anyone is being unhelpful around here, it’s you.” She hissed.

Now Pidge looked up, her eyes blazing, “I should have the video camera. I’m the tech agent. It’s tech! I had my last mission not in the chair. I’m done probation now. I’m back to normal again, I’m fine. It’s the next mission. I know what I’m doing.”

Allura threw her hands up to the sky, “No you don’t! You’re a child Pidge. A child. You barely know how to keep your emotions in check let alone keep a mission running smoothly without causing some sort of drama.”

Pidge seemed to choke, “I’m dramatic? You’re the one that has to micromanage everything! We were the best team for a reason, Allura. At least Alfor let us do our jobs!”

Allura was too worked up now for the jab to take any effect, “You want to know what Alfor did? He cuddled you. He let you have full reign and do whatever your little fingers pleased on that keyboard. I’ve got news for you green one. That’s not how a Paladin works! He treated you like you were some golden child!”

“I AM THE BEST!” Pidge finally stood up. Luckily there were very few people around even though Allura barely cared, she was so exasperated, “Find me someone better at tech than me, I dare you Allura! I quiznackin’ dare you!”

Allura stood up, towering over Pidge, her last strain of composure gone, “Only complements motivate your magical fingers to do your work that you should be doing no matter the circumstances. You all say that Lance has the biggest ego on the team, but I know better. If only sweet talk and sugar can get you to perform basic objectives Katie, then you’re not a real agent and you’ll certainly never be a real Paladin!”

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

Lance felt just like a real Paladin. 

“Okay, metal detectors, security checks, no pat downs though, nothing we didn’t prepare for.” He muttered as he grabbed the big black bag and scurried after Shiro.

They passed the gate check with ease, Shiro doing all the speaking and Lance just nodding stiffly when appropriate. 

They were now walking up a staircase carpeted in a lush red, marble columns and gold trimmings soaring above them. Lance nodded at the saluting security guard as they neared the front desk. Game face. Game face. Kremlin game face. 

Lance cheered to himself as they passed it. Ura! Yay! Finally into the Kremlin and one step closer to-

“Excuse me commander, may I see your identification.” The guard called.

They both stopped still.

Der’mo.

Lance waited for Shiro to move. It was all up to him now.

Well, him, and the ID hacking device that should be in the chimney by now scrambling the system.

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

Allura saw Pidge’s face crumble. 

She had gone too far. 

Immediately, all anger and annoyance evaporated and Allura was hit with a wave of guilt. Of course Pidge was tense and snippy. It was a stressful situation to put it mildly. Naturally, she was dramatic and attention seeking. She needed the same amount of love that any young teenager would. Of course she was selfish and private. Anyone would be if their brother and father had gone missing. 

Allura opened her mouth to say something but Pidge beat her to it. 

“The agency took everything from me.” Her voice, though trembling, was colder than any Russian winter and just as biting, “I gave this agency everything. I gave them my brother. I gave them my Dad. I gave them me and all I could possibly come with. And they took it all. My brother is gone. My Dad is gone. And I’m still here, giving all of myself to this stupid shithole of an agency through hacking and coding and revolutionizing AIS’ tech agency, so don’t you dare say I will never be a Paladin when I’ve earned that title a hundred times over by now! But do you think anyone ever gives me a second glance? No. They take one look at the kid with the wide set teeth, or the big round glasses slipping off her nose, or the hoodie falling over her eyes and walk right on by, cause I’ll just be hacking into another government again soon anyway- after all, where else am I supposed to go? They can’t let me go into the normal world now! I know too much! I’m too dangerous to be a civilian anymore. I will never be rid of the agency, or the AIS, or the damn paladins! I can only keep on giving and giving and giving until I’m killed. Cause that’s what happens, right? That’s what... that’s what we’re here for, right? Agents die. It’s what they do. You’ll all die a-and I will too. Someday soon, I’ll just be shot or strangled o-or poisoned or... e-exploded or or-”

In one gentle sweep, Allura’s arms scooped up Pidge and she held the agent shuddering lose. Stroking her soft hair, Allura’s heart broke for the smallest paladin as she rocked Pidge like a mother would a frightened baby. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. 

Pidge suddenly started hiccupping. 

Allura looked down in soft surprise to see the widest, most golden, shiniest eyes looking back up at her. 

Hic. 

Allura couldn’t help it. It was so small. So quick. So cute. 

She burst out giggling.

A suddenly indignant Pidge wiggled her way out of Allura’s arms, wiping away any tears still on her cheeks, “That’s -hic- that’s not- hic- that’s not funny Allu-hic-ra!” 

Seeing Pidge defend herself, her cheeks still bright red and her bottom lip out in a pout only made Allura laugh harder, “Hahaha! Oh, oh Pidge, I-hahaha- I’m so-hoho- I’m so sorry, I just haha- I’m just- oh hehehehe!”

Pidge just stared. She stared until her eyes started to crinkle in the corners. She stared until her mouth began to twitch. She stared until she too, was so overcome with giggles she had to sit down so as to not fall over, her legs splayed out before her like a toddler, the hiccups moving her entire body as she laughed and laughed until she couldn’t breathe and she fell over to catch her breath.

Allura gasped in some air as she leaned forward, meeting Pidge’s smile. Probably the first genuine smile Pidge had ever given her. 

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

“You should recognize your commanding officer, private.” Shiro took slow, deliberate steps towards the guard. Lance couldn’t be sure, but he swore he just saw a shiver cross the guard’s shoulders. 

Shiro placed his identification on the counter, two fingers remaining pressed on it. 

The guard was forced to pry the badge from under Shiro’s fingers. He must have been pressing down on it for a moment because the guard lost his grip. On the second try, the guard slid the badge easily away from Shiro’s hand which curled inwards like a deep sea creature folding back into its cave.

The guard looked up a few times as he opened the badge and scanned it. Lance thought he looked like a squirrel, twitchy and nervous. He was sure to take all his want to grin and manically chuckle and put it towards looking annoyed and insulted at the guard’s actions. How dare he stop the General. How. Dare. He.

The scanner’s light showed its progress as the computer waited to load the results. Lance checked his ‘phone’. It was programmed to show the hacking device’s progress. A red bar glared up at Lance, “Not Connected.”

Well quiznack. 

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

Allura and Pidge had finally calmed down.

Still taking deep breaths and Pidge still hiccupping, Allura shook her head and flopped back on the bench. What a tirade of emotions to go through in such a short amount of time.   
Her fingers brushed something. She looked down to see the video camera, showing the balloon floating just above the chimney.

“Quiznack!” She hissed, grabbing the camera. 

Pidge caught on and hissed her own string of swear words that would have made a sailor wince.

Allura fumbled with the camera and clicked the centre button. With a pop, the balloon was gone and the hacking device tumbled down the chimney in a series of clicks against the sides, coming to rest in a few seconds at the sooty bottom of the brick. 

“It will work right away right?” Allura asked hurriedly. They may have just blown the entire operation before it even started.

Pidge nodded, pulling out her phone, “It should be working now. Here.” She held up her device that showed a loading percentage that was increasing far too slowly in Allura’s opinion.

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

Lance almost fainted in relief when his phone ‘connected’ and began to load. But the loading was taking far too long.

The computer bleeped a displeased sound and the guard kept his eyes on the computer. He did not want to tell the General the news, but he found his voice, “I’m sorry General, you are not showing up in the system.” 

Shiro sighed a big, long sigh of exasperation, his face never moving past a military mask of displeasure. 

99%. 100%. Connected.

Lance put his phone back into his pocket and nudged Shiro’s boot with his own. 

“Try again.” Shiro said slowly.

“Private.” Lance added, sneering.

The guard tried it again. 

Almost immediately, with a high, happy bleep, the ID badge was accepted. 

The guard gave the badge back with a salute, “Apologies General, I did not recognize you.” 

Shiro just took the badge with an icy look and walked away.

Lance stooped to pick his bags back up. But he couldn’t resist, “Your superiors will hear about this private. Pfff.” He blew through his lips in exasperation. If he had had long hair, like a mullet or something, he would have flicked it as he walked away.

VPVPVPVPVPVPVPVP

99%. 100%. Connected.

Both Allura and Pidge exhaled and slumped against each other on the bench. After a moment of rest for their drumming hearts, Allura rose and stretched her back. Turning to Pidge, somehow still slumped in the same position she had been on Allura, she extended her hand, “We should go and meet Hunk at the van now that our part is done.”

Pidge looked at the offered hand and grasped it, adding a little bounce to her rise when she got to her feet, “I’ve been wanting to tweak the coms for months now. They’re set up in the van still right?”

Of course they were. The com units were never set up anywhere else, but Allura knew the question for what it really was. Pidge’s roundabout way of checking that she was fully cleared for tech duty again. 

Allura smiled, “They always were, Paladin.”

Pidge looked shocked for but a tick, the moment the emotion showed on her face was the moment she covered it up with a soft smile back. But Allura noticed her head tilted slightly back as Pidge walked ahead of her back to the van. She was glowing in excitement.

Allura took one look back to the Kremlin as they exited the property. She hoped things were going smoother for Shiro and Lance then they had for her and Pidge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Collapses onto couch* Whew! I'm like... emotionally exhausted from writing that chapter? But yay! The mission is happening now people! Woo! Shit goes down in the next chapter so stay tuned :D  
> Thanks again for reading this!   
> Please drop a kudos or comment! I appreciate them so much!! Let me know what you thought of the argument! Any questions? Concerns? Comments? Quesadillas? I could go for a quesadilla right about now.   
> See you all next week!


	5. "Standing By to Detonate"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Lance had eyes only for the white van ahead. So far ahead. Ears ringing, and legs pumping, the smoke suddenly cleared and the sky could be seen as he seemed to emerge, for a moment, out of the explosions. For a second, for a single tick, hope rose in his chest. He had made it, he was clear, so what the quiznack was that anyw- before the thought could finish, the ground completely disappeared under him. A white hot force threw Lance in the air like a leaf and he was sent head over heels towards a black cloud of fire and shrapnel. There was an intense flash of red and then all went black."

“I think that went quite well.” Lance whispered to Shiro as they entered the main hallway of the building.

“Don’t talk anymore.” Shiro sighed in Russian.

“Prosti!” Lance ducked his head and fell into step behind the General as they walked passed saluting soldiers and through yawning wooden double doors. 

They passed through a darkened ballroom on their way down to the archives and Lance, subdued from Shiro’s chastening, barely glanced around, but from what he saw, the white walls were engraved with gold and above him, chandeliers begging to be lit dripped with crystals. The mirrors on the walls reflected each other and made the exquisite room continue for eternity and made his eyes hurt. In the back of his head, Lance assumed the ceiling was beautifully painted with clouds, cherubs and gods and goddesses but he and Shiro passed through another door and down to the archives before curiosity got the better of him. 

As soon as Shiro turned the corner, his entire body shifted. He was no longer the stoic military man, but an AIS agent with a time constraint. He flew down the stairs, Lance jumping down behind him to keep up.

“About to enter the archive room, do you copy Yellow?” Shiro said into the coms.

“Roger that Black. I can just see Pink and Green making their way back here. Coms will now be on silent to prevent detection in three, two, one.”

Shiro inserted a key card device into the lock on the door ahead. Lance looked around to make sure no one was coming down the stairs as he heard a click form the door; the combination was hacked within seconds, thank you Pidge and Hunk. 

Once it was unlocked, Shiro paused and looked at Lance, nodding. Lance nodded back. Clear. And they opened the door.

Lance’s body moved into action and he put down the satchel he was carrying. Taking out a flip phone like device, he tossed it to Shiro who caught it and clipped it to the wiring of the security camera watching the short hallway in front of them, freezing the feed and making them invisible. 

Without looking up from his bag, Lance handed Shiro a tech pad and removed their secret weapon of the mission. The shimmering material gleamed in the bright hall lights as Lance crept up to Shiro, who was crouching at the corner of the hallway. He had the flexible camera bent around the corner, spying out the archives hallway. 

Lance looked at the camera’s feed displayed on the pad. The hallway was wide and well lit. There was a large, marble statue slightly behind them against the wall where the hallway they were looking at split into a ‘T’. A plush red carpet lined the floor, which Lance thought was a little excessive for an archive room but hey, it was to their advantage as their feet would be muted the entire time. 

A single guard sat at a large desk at the other end of the long hallway and Lance felt sorry for the guy for a moment. He would probably be fired if anyone found out they were here. However, he reminded himself, the whole point was to conduct this mission in stealth. No one was to know anything was tampered with or examined or touched in any way. Allura made sure to tell that to Lance. Four times. 

The phone suddenly rang, its noise cutting into the stuffy silence so that Lance jumped. Taking out a sort of odd, flashlight-looking object, Lance eagerly pointed it towards the guard, assuming this was the distraction they needed. Shiro grabbed his arm to stop him before he could. 

Motioning to the pad in his hand showing the guard talking on the phone around the corner, Shiro nodded towards it.  
¬  
Wait until he is done on the phone. 

Lance swallowed, nodding back, suddenly nervous. He could have made the distraction with the device and the guard would have told whoever it was on the other line about it and it could have people coming down to investigate, blowing the whole operation before it barely began. Lance was better than this. He knew he was. This wasn’t his first mission and it wasn’t like he was even doing anything particularly hard either. But he was directly in the field. His first real field mission since the ‘mission’. 

Without warning, flashes of lights seemed to burst behind Lance’s eyes. There was a muted boom deep in his eardrums. Lance was alone. It was dark. Something burned; something smelled like it was burning. Terror gripping his lungs like a vice, Lance had the sudden urge to violently rub his eyes.

Shiro eased the pad onto his crouched knee and gripped Lance’s shoulder. Lance looked into his eyes. He didn’t know what he was expecting; urgency? Anger? Annoyance? Patronizing comfort? But it wasn’t that. It was understanding. Warmth. A sort of care he hadn’t seen directed at him from a leader since, well, since Alfor. 

The young agent had to physically shift to shake himself out of his own head. Think Lance THINK. Focus. You know what you have to do. You’re a sniper, a sharpshooter, you don’t just shoot everyone who comes around a corner. Patience padawan. You wait. Patiently wait. You are not trigger happy. 

Lance just blinked back, composing himself, and nodded. Barely. But it was enough and Shiro picked the pad back up, watching the feed of the guard still on the phone. 

Lance watched Shiro watching the pad. Eyes alert and twitching as he watched for an opening, mind probably running scenarios or gun types or state birds just to be active. This guy was amazing. He was his hero. Everyone knows the stories of people who meet their heroes only to be disappointed in their normality, their underwhelming abilities, the fact that they didn’t live up to desperately high expectations. Not this one. No, Shiro was everything Lance imagined he would be. And more. And for what? For his genius and ability and dedication to the AIS, he was thrown in a prison only to be let out just because the agency needed him. He had gone through something no paladin could imagine. Losing his team. Going against orders to avenge them. Lance had trained himself a long time ago not to think too hard of what he would do if he lost his team, but he had grazed the thought enough to know that, he too, would do anything he could to avenge them no matter what the AIS said. 

Without thinking, Lance suddenly whispered to Shiro, “I’m sorry.” Shiro glanced at him and nodded in acknowledgement, probably thinking Lance was apologising for the little moment back there, “About your time in jail.” Shiro slowly looked back at Lance, “And your team, you know? I-I just wanted to let you know that, well, I would be devastated if I lost mine and, well, I don’t think you did anything wrong, disobeying the agency or anything.”

Shiro looked at Lance for a moment too long, brown knit together, mouth parted like he wanted to say something, almost like he was confused.

Lance glanced down at the pad, “He’s off the phone now.” 

Shiro was shook out of his thoughts and nodded for Lance to do the distraction. 

Lance raised the device and clicked the button. 

Plink

A drip noise echoed off the walls. The device was an SDD- Sound Distraction Device. A brilliant little toy that allowed a sound like a drip or a bell or a ring to be projected off walls and ceilings so that a person across a room would hear it, but not really know where it was coming from. 

Lance pressed the button one more time.

Plink-a-plick

It did the trick, the guard stood up and walked over to the side to investigate. He peered around a corner and then opened a side closet. 

As soon as the door was opened, Shiro and Lance moved. 

Pressing and extending buttons and a few attachments, within seconds, a screen was popped open, perfectly fitting the height and width of the hallway. Lance attached the specialized eyeline camera just as the guard walked back out. Shiro placed the pad at the bottom of the screen, attaching it to the camera. The camera immediately caught the guard’s sightline and the screen sprang to life, projecting the hallway behind them as if they were never there. As the guard walked back to his desk, the camera followed his eyes, adjusting the angles and position of the statue and hallway as the guard would regularly see. 

Lance raised the SDD again and clicked.

Pa-plik

The guard walked away again, more determined this time to find the cause of the dripping. 

As soon as he disappeared from the camera’s sight, Shiro motioned with his head to move. 

The SDD in his teeth, Lance lifted his side of the screen and Shiro lifted his and they walked as quickly and quietly as they could, trying to reach the archive door in the hallway ahead on their left. 

With the sound of a door closing, Shiro nodded a halt and the two men barely breathed. The guard walked back and sat in his seat. 

Lance took the SDD and pressed again. 

Plink plakak. 

The guard looked around incredulously, getting up and putting his ear to the wall behind him. But he didn’t go through any more doors.

Lance looked at Shiro for his call. 

Shiro nodded forward and forward they went, so quietly even Lance couldn’t hear their movement. 

At last passing the door they needed to get into, Shiro nodded a halt and they paused as the guard turned again and sat down. 

Shiro motioned to Lance and Lance, with one big, silent tip toe, stepped to the middle of the screen and crouched to pick up the pad. Standing slowly, looking at the screen and trying to remember exactly what to do. Suddenly, Lance was face to face with the camera’s projector making his wide eyes and nose the sudden centre of the projector’s screen.

The guard looked up to find an empty hallway, but he stared longer than he should have, probably getting the sense that he was being watched. Behind the screen, Lance was balancing backwards on one foot with Shiro’s hand on his face, trying as hard as Shiro not to breathe too loudly as adrenalin pounded his ears. They could only watch with wide eyes and bated breath as the guard slowly went back to his work.

Putting his leg down as quietly as he could, Lance gaped at Shiro who was looking at him sternly, if not very relieved. 

The pad blinked at them, showing ‘render complete’ and Shiro turned to the projector and slowly ran his hand across it. When the screen remained a picture of the hallway, Shiro gripped Lance’s shoulder again, Everything worked out, it’s all good.

Lance just nodded, suddenly wanting nothing more than for the mission to be over. 

Putting the pad back in its slot at the bottom of the screen, Lance followed Shiro to the archive door as he inserted the key card again to get the code for the door. With a click that would have, in any other circumstance, been barely heard that now boomed in Lance’s ears, the door opened with a soft hush of air.

Shiro slipped inside and Lance remained at the door.

Lance returned to the pad, fiddling with the SDD, ready to activate it if the guard got a little antsy. His heart was pumping in his hears and he knew his adrenalin was going to crash soon. Glancing back to the door, Lance urged Shiro to hurry up. 

After a few more seconds, another feeling began to creep in. A sort of sixth sense. 

Something was happening. Something bad. 

Alfor had taught them about it, a gut feeling, an inner time clock, a third eye. He taught them to listen to it. 

Lance rose, looking around. 

They should get out. Now.

“It’s empty.” Shiro’s voice was heard, breathless in disbelief over the com link, “The nest is empty.”

Lance opened his mouth, but suddenly another sound was heard. Muffled and struggling. Distorted grunting. Lance knew that sound. He knew all of Voltron knew that sound. They had heard that sound when Alfor went into a mission because he didn’t want the others to have to do such dirty work. It was the sound of life draining, of desperate struggle, of merciless precision. Someone was being strangled. 

Lance pressed a finger to his ear. What the quiznack was going on?

Crack.

Lance physically flinched as the sound of a spine snapping was heard through the coms. 

“Check in Team Leader. Over” Then, a voice, “Repeat, check in, Team Leader.” Lance’s heart rate spiked, “Have you made it to the Archive Room?” In the back of his mind, Lance knew that guards all over the Kremlin could be racing to their exact location, but he remained frozen.

Pidge, blessed, familiar Pidge, was suddenly heard over the mysterious voice, “Someone is piggybacking our frequency!”

Lance rushed into the archive room, Shiro looked at him with the most serious face he had seen. Eyes hard and calculating, mouth set in a straight line. He held up a hand before Lance could say anything, the voice was still talking, 

“Team Leader, awaiting your go-sign. Standing by to detonate.”

Shiro looked at Lance and uttered the one word no agent ever hoped to hear on a mission, “Abort.” 

With that, Lance and Shiro walked out of the room, still keeping quiet as voices were heard behind them. As they neared the end of the hallway, Shiro just spoke two words to Lance, “Rendevouz six.” And they split up. 

Lance walked faster than he ever had before, trying to still look the part in case any guards came his way. He knew that by now, the guards would be converging on the archive room. The camera, not being able to keep up with so many different eyelines, would be going haywire and the gig would be up. 

Reaching a long hallway leading out, Lance burst into a sprint, knowing that ‘abort’ meant just that. Abort. Forget about the mission, forget about the tech and everything else. Get. Out. 

Bursting through a gateway, Lance slammed into a brick wall as he ran around a corner, a sharp pain blossoming in his shoulder. Pushing himself forward, he sprinted with all his might down the dimly lit passageway. 

Panting, Lance slowed down as he neared the exit. Coming out at the west gatehouse as he had planned, Lance tightened his cap around his head.

The guards snapped to attention as he exited, his brain reminding him that he was, in fact, dressed as a corporal. 

Lance glanced at the gate. Anyone could get out and, though it was unlikely that the person who piggybacked their frequency would come out this way too, Lance was suddenly venomous. No one who was after them would get out this way if he could help it. 

He turned to the guards, “Shut the gate!” He bellowed in Russian. He knew he said it right but the guards glanced at him as if unsure about the order, “Quickly!” He snapped and the guards flew to obey. 

As soon as he rounded the corner and exited the guardhouse, Lance ripped off the stripes on his pants and took off his hat, wiping the makeup off his face with a wipe in his hat as he went. Throwing the disguise in the bushes beside the gate, he ripped off the stiff collar to reveal an AC DC shirt underneath. He took off the military jacket and reversed it to a windbreaker. Taking out a pair of fake glasses, he put them on and took out the map of the Kremlin that Coran, that gorgeous man, had stowed in its pocket. 

He was transformed from corporal to tourist before he passed the now closing gates on the other side.

Looking around, Lance saw the white van in the distance where the rest of his team should be waiting. 

Walking purposefully through the crowded cobbled street outside the Kremlin, the ground suddenly shook beneath Lance’s feet. Stumbling forward, Lance looked behind him as the ground rumbled again, the red brick of the Kremlin and the tall clock tower rising above him. 

What the quiznack? 

Lance suddenly recalled the last words of the piggybacker, “Standing by to detonate.” and his heart stopped.

Suddenly, a defining explosion shook the sky and the tower exploded into a cloud of black. Lance could only stand with an open mouth as the walls began exploding closer and closer, the force throwing him back into a parked car. The movement was enough to wake his brain up. Instinct flooded his limbs as he began to run, the world turning into dark smoke and flying brick as the explosions gained ground towards him. Lance had eyes only for the white van ahead. So far ahead. Ears ringing, and legs pumping, the smoke suddenly cleared and the sky could be seen as he seemed to emerge, for a moment, out of the explosions. For a second, for a single tick, hope rose in his chest. He had made it, he was clear, so what the quiznack was that anyw- before the thought could finish, the ground completely disappeared under him. A white hot force threw Lance in the air like a leaf and he was sent head over heels towards a black cloud of fire and shrapnel. There was an intense flash of red and then all went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry my dear readers! Here's this week's chapter! I know it's late! This week has been crazy! Here! Take it! *shoves it in your face and runs away*  
> *voice already faint and far away* I hope you like it!


	6. Black and Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro wakes, trapped in a hospital and Pidge gets to kick some ass.

Everything hurt.

His body, his head- quiznack, even his eyes hurt, and for a timeless moment, all senses were overcome just by pain. 

Then sound. 

Beeping, buzzing, a bustling of people. Talking. Not English? 

Shiro opened his eyes, wincing as the light pierced into his head.

The bright spots faded as he took in his surroundings. People passed by continuously. So he was in a hallway. Nurses helping bandaged and bloody patients. So this was after the attack. He noticed a tube coming from a hanging medical bad running into his hand. So he had been unconscious and vital for a while. He lifted his hand as he saw the blue and purple bruises along his knuckles and grew more awake as his hand was stopped a few inches up, a handcuff clinking on the bed frame. So he was also a suspect. 

Shifting his head some more, Shiro realized with relief that he wasn’t restrained in any other way. One would be surprised at how many people thought his stump of an arm would be a threat somehow and made sure to hold him down another way. And they usually were right to do so.

A voice caught his ear and he angled his head as much as he could towards the Russian reporter’s voice on a television outside of his vision, “Officials are blaming an explosion underneath the Kremlin, to be the reason for the chain reaction. It is not yet clear what section of the Kremlin was affected but sources at the sight say that there is a massive crater in the northern corner of the grounds.”

The reporter went on, but Shiro turned his head and nestled back into his pillow, gathering his thoughts. 

So he was chained to a hospital bed. Not the first time, but he was also injured and, he thought, moving his shoulders experimentally, weaker than he would have liked. He didn’t feel any broken bones, but he was sure his ribs were severely bruised. He was sore all over and the ringing in his ears had yet to cease. He remembered running out of the Kremlin and successfully turning his disguise to that of a tourist. He had just spotted Lance walking briskly towards their white van a couple dozen feet away when the entire world shifted. He couldn’t remember much after that except a cloud of smoke enveloping him as he was thrown in the air like a rag doll.

He hoped the team was okay. Lance was probably hit by the blast too. Worry bloomed through Shiro’s chest. From what he could piece together, team Voltron had just barely emerged from a mission gone wrong, the last thing they needed was another failure right after. Shiro began to grow antsy and knew he should be escaping momentarily. He had to get back to the team, he had to tell them... wait, what did he have to tell them? Quiznack, there had been something he had to tell the team... something he had realized as he was running out of the Kremlin…

“Our media is no more truthful than you are.” A thickly accented voice said.

Shiro looked up to see a stocky, wide face leering over him, “But we both know, that the cause of the explosion, was you.” The man walked down his sight line and held up Shiro’s two way jacket, revealing the General stars on the collar.

Throwing the jacket on the bed near Shiro’s feet, the man leaned in and held a recording device close to Shiro’s ear. Pressing it, a familiar voice spoke up just a little too loudly, causing Shiro to wince, “Awaiting your go-sign Team Leader. Standing by to detonate.” 

Shiro understood how all of this looked. He understood that this man, who was probably a government investigator of some kind, was here to make him suffer for what happened. But Shiro had never been one to beg and he was absolutely not going to start now.

“So, ‘Team Leader’, where is the rest of your team then?”

Shiro looked at the man steadily.

The man took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth, waiting for a response. As he reached into his jacket for a light, a nurse yanked the cigarette out of his mouth and threw it on the ground, 

“This is a hospital, not a nightclub” She chastised in rapid Russian, tossing her paperwork beside Shiro’s arm. Shiro, for his part, closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep as his fingers worked a paperclip loose from the papers. As the nurse wheeled his bed into a more private room, Shiro peeked through his eyelashes and saw the Russian Investigator standing at the door, watching the nurse as she picked up her papers, only to have them scatter all over the ground with nothing holding them together anymore. 

Another man came up beside the Investigator, speaking to him in hushed tones. Shiro had to open his eyes a little more to watch their lips, 

“The doctors say he’s lucky to be alive, Rax. Only a minor concussion and some bruised ribs. He’s in a delicate condition.”

“I don’t give a damn about his health. I have questions that need answering.”

Shiro stopped listening and shuffled his hand, getting it around the cuff. 

A little too easily, it clicked open and he slid it off, taking out the tubing in his wrist with his teeth (something he would never recommend), and sliding off the bed in one quick movement. 

A team of nurses wheeled a train of beds by the doorway, distracting the Investigators and Shiro seized the opportunity. There was only one door in and out of the room, so the window it would have to be. 

Wearing only his dark pants from the mission, Shiro stepped out onto the windowsill, barely wide enough for him to shimmy along. Gripping the edge with his toes and spreading his arm out wide behind him, he shuffled along the edge until he reached the corner. Looking down, Shiro tensed his legs, a garbage pile on the ground three stories below, his destination. 

Shiro’s ribs ached in protest and his ears were still- still?- ringing. He stared down at the pile of garbage... there really weren’t that many bags... and it was hospital garbage, meaning the bags were more likely to be filled with syringes than towels. Shiro swallowed. Maybe this wasn’t the best plan after all.

As he began to turn around, he saw the Investigator, Rax, leaning out the window, an unlit cigarette in hand, watching with an amused expression. The man looked down and then back at Shiro, raising his eyebrows. He motioned with his cigarette as if to say, well, get on with it then. 

Shiro just looked back down. What other choice did he have? He tensed, readying himself. But he still didn’t move. This wasn’t a movie. There wasn’t any convenience to this. He would more than likely kill himself on the jump down rather than give himself up now and escape later when he was on the ground again. 

The Investigator lit his cigarette, sensing he had won, “Not such a good idea anymore then?” he asked in English. 

Shiro just shrugged, “Seemed like a good one a minute ago.”

The man just nodded and gestured to Shiro like a toddler who realized it was time to come inside now. 

Shiro just nodded, looking defeated and carefully shimmied back along the windowsill. Were his bare feet really that dirty? 

The start of a motor suddenly caught Shiro’s attention and he looked down the street to see a large van beginning to drive past the hospital.

Shiro looked up to see a piece of cable, probably an electrical wire, running from the floor above, down to the entrance of an apartment building across the street. His hand moved quickly, untying his belt from around his waist. 

Caution may help you not to die, but instinct keeps you alive. An old AIS saying. Shiro looked up and swung it around the wire and caught it again, wrapping his fist around it.

Before the Investigator could even cry out, Shiro launched himself into the air, the belt careening him down towards the roof of the vehicle. Tensing, Shiro let go and fell the rest of the way onto the van, bouncing off and rolling along the cobblestones. The van skidded to the side, the driver shouting a string of curses.

Shiro looked up at the shocked face of the Investigator, still staring out the window. Shiro probably matched his expression. Quickly checking himself over at a glance, Shiro looked one last time at the Investigator, who drew out a gun, and wasted no time in picking himself up and sprinting down the street and around the corner. 

 

It had been a long time since Pidge had felt so at ease as she had been when she had sat back in her chair in the white van after she and Allura had returned to the rendezvous. She had sighed and sank deep into the hard, crusty cushions of the creaky swivel chair, practically purring.

Pidge frowned to herself now as she made her way down a cobbled Russian street. In hindsight she probably didn’t even notice the first of the explosions she was so blissfully content. But she had absolutely felt the ones after. 

Pidge wrapped her arms around her body as she rounded another corner. The entire van had suddenly rocked, equipment rattling dangerously and Pidge had looked to Hunk, her breath caught in her throat. He matched her wide eyes and they had grabbed each other’s arms as Allura yanked the van door open to see what was going on.

Pidge halted her train of thought as she caught sight of a large man in a dark hooded coat ahead, walking quickly. Speeding up her pace, Pidge was about to shout his name when the man turned into a bar and she saw that he was bearded and blond. Not Shiro. 

Pidge bit her lip and slowed again as she continued on her way to the Roijevick Hospital. There were quite a few hospitals in the capital and Pidge and Hunk had already searched three between the two of them. Pidge absently picked at her gloved hands as she stopped herself from worrying too much. There were still two more. Shiro could be in either. She picked up her pace. She wanted to find Shiro as soon as she could so she could get back to the safe house and see Lance. Oh Lance. 

Pidge’s ever logical brain assaulted her- again- with his injuries: 

Minor concussion 

Multiple lacerations

Bruising 

First and second degree burns along his shoulder.

Pidge gripped her gloved hands. She knew how painful those could be.

They had all rushed out of the van as soon as Allura opened the door to a scene out of a disaster movie. Smoke and dust was everywhere, explosions still shook the ground where they stood and fires glowed in the blackened air. The rumbling and crumbling of brick and buildings was the only noise to be heard for minutes until they stopped, and then the screaming. So much screaming. Loud, guttural, throat tearing shouts that were scorched into Pidge’s memory by pure sound alone. Hunk had been the first to start shouting too. Allura and Pidge were quick to join as they rushed into the fray, looking for Lance and Shiro. 

Allura had found Lance, not a dozen feet away from the van, unconscious and covered in soot. So much so, there was almost no way to tell what was blood and what was burned skin and what was just ash. Hunk had picked him up delicately and brought him back to the van. Pidge had just watched. She couldn’t lift Lance. She couldn’t offer medical help like Allura. She had just stood there, looking around, mouth open and eyes unblinking, absorbing the chaos around her like a dry sponge whether she wanted to or not. 

The sound of approaching sirens had snapped her out of whatever stupor she had been in and Pidge had rushed back to the van, her brain once again working to find a logical hold on reality. More than she would like to admit, Pidge was often frustrated at how her brain was wired to immediately assess a situation for what it was in facts and statistics but this time, she knew it would save them. They were in an unmarked white van that was barely dirty, parked just enough distance away from the explosions to have survived and were still on the scene of what could only be a major terrorist attack. They had to get out of here.

Hunk had looked at her like she had injured him personally, Lance’s head in his lap. Pidge hadn’t realized she had said that last part out loud until Allura had agreed with Pidge’s statement at the same time Hunk had asked about Shiro. 

Pidge had felt a wave of guilt wash over her. She had, in all honesty, forgotten about Shiro. They had Lance, he was in need of medical attention and they were too conspicuous out in the open like this. She hadn’t thought past those facts before her but before she could respond, Allura had made the call. Hunk had gaped in protest, but it was half hearted. His friend was hurting and was right there in his lap. No one had any idea of where to even begin looking for Shiro. 

And that was why Pidge was here now; less than a block away from the last hospital she had to check for Shiro. Hunk was on the other side of the city checking his last hospital. After that probably the trauma centres and, frankly, the police stations and consulates and multiple other areas. Hospitals were only one place out of many Shiro could be in the city. 

She tugged absentmindedly at her grey-white hood over her head and pulled her green jacket closer. No one should technically know her face was involved with the accident, but it never hurt to be cautious. Besides, it was chilly and getting towards evening now. Russian nights were cold, and dangerous.

Just as Pidge’s brain was about to begin another tangent on the subject, a body flew out of nowhere and bowled straight into her. Pidge was sent spinning into a building as she was left to untangle her twisted legs. A rushed Prosti! was all that was given from the person in return. Pidge turned and was about to let off a barrage of curses- Russian curses at that- that would have her paying up the swear jar long after she turned grey when her words died on her lips. She recognized that white streak and wide jaw and he had just disappeared around an alleyway.

Stumbling back around, Pidge took off after Shiro, “Hey wait! Wait! Yo!”

She rounded the corner to see Shiro almost already at the end of the ally. Quiznack the guy could move.

“BLACK!” 

Pidge knew she shouldn’t have screamed. She also knew that, since she had just alerted any pursuers to their location, it probably didn’t matter to use Shiro’s code name instead of his real name. But she also knew that, even sprinting as hard as she could, she could never hope to overtake the paladin agent silently and he would be long gone in seconds when he rounded that corner. 

Regardless, it was done now and it worked. Shiro skidded to a stop (in bare feet, Pidge winced) at the corner and turned. Recognition dawned on his face and he turned back and began walking towards her. Pidge smiled and gave a little finger wave. 

Even from where Pidge was standing, she could see that Shiro looked awful. He had no shirt or shoes on, his hair was matted and frizzled, his face was still dirty with soot and his chest looked like someone had drawn on it with blue and purple marker and then smudged it all over, it was so bruised. 

Suddenly, Shiro started sprinting towards her, his eyes focused above her head. Pidge frowned and turned, just barely ducking in time to avoid a fist to the face that would have sent her flying. 

Dodging and moving back, Pidge spun and crouched low, taking in the short, stocky man and a few other official looking goons behind him. 

She barely had a chance to register them all before Shiro was upon them, shouting a quick, “Green, get down!”, before tackling them like a bowling ball to ninepins. He slammed into the stocky one first, knocking him into those behind him. Pidge gaped as the guy’s feet were literally sent flying in the air as he was forced to the ground, his head clacking against the cobble.

The other goons were recovering and were reaching into their coats. Instinct flooded her limbs and Pidge charged the nearest one before he even registered her movement, grabbing his clothing and climbing up him like a tree. You’re small Pidge, but you’re also fast. Use it to the advantage- no one expects a kid to charge them, much less be a skilled fighter. She went for his throat and latched around it like a python, holding on for dear life as he thrashed. Don’t let go. Never let go. The man backed up and slammed her against a wall. Pidge’s breath caught in her throat but she hung deftly on. When you think you can’t anymore, do it longer! Always just a little longer! His hands reached up, clawing at her face. She brought up one of her legs and latched onto an arm, securing it tightly. Whatever they can do to you is always far more dangerous head on than anything they could do to you while you’re on their back. Pidge bit a grabbing finger, getting a yelp in return and hissed as nails scratched her temple. It’s faster in the movies. It will take anywhere from two to three minutes for a grown man to succumb to strangulation. The movements were finally sluggish and staggered and the man at last sunk to his knees, falling forward into an unconscious heap.

Slowly unlatching herself from her hold, Pidge thanked Alfor for his rigorous training and stood to see Shiro staring at her, eyebrows high into his forehead. 

Pidge was breathing heavily as she looked around to see the rest of the men, also unconscious and in various states of injury, on the ground surrounding them. 

Pidge curled her lip and smacked her tongue around, “You wouldn’t happen to have a toothbrush would you? Or even some gum? I have no idea where that man has been.”

Shiro burst out laughing, surprising the young agent, “No, no I don’t. Sorry Katie.”

Pidge touched her temple. She looked at her gloved fingers. Just trace amounts of blood. She’ll live.

“We should get out of here.” Shiro said, taking turns glancing at her with a mix of concern and admiration, and then looking around like he was expecting an entire army to come swarming around the corner at any moment. He probably wasn’t too far off.

Pidge nodded and puller her hood back over her head. It must have fell while she was fighting. Fighting. She had just fought. The realization hit Pidge like a punch to the gut. All this time, she had been complaining and whining about not being in the field, and here, without even noticing, she was just thrown into the real world. When she had been wandering around the city earlier looking for Shiro, she hadn’t thought about it at all. It had been an order, something that had to be done. Allura had told her to look for Shiro, and she had left with Hunk without another thought. The fact that she had just been assigned field work had never crossed her mind! And here she was. She had just taken down a guy. She- she. Katie Holt, was a fully fledged, in the field, fighting and fully capable agent. Pidge was living her dream. Here she was. As she ran after Shiro, she couldn’t make up her mind if she was unbelievably excited or completely terrified. 

Together, they flew down the rest of the alleyway and around the corner, entering a crowded market place.

As they passed the stalls, automatically slowing down, they weaved in and out through the crowds of people. As they neared the edge of the market, Shiro shot his arm out and swung a jacket around his shoulders. Buttoning it up and tucking the unfilled sleeve into the pocket, Shiro made it look like any other arm if people didn’t look too hard. With a quick tug, he pulled the hood up to mask his hair and put his face in shadow. Out of the two of them, people would recognize him far faster than Pidge if Shiro already had officials after him.

Pidge’s heart had not stopped obnoxiously thudding in her ears and she was literally walking on her toes as they neared the end of the marketplace. She was getting ready to run some more when Shiro’s hand rested on her shoulder, “First rule of being on the run Katie is to walk, don’t run.” 

Pidge let her feet fall into a more casual walk and nodded, probably for too long. She fell into step with Shiro, which was almost jogging for her anyway.

Pidge couldn’t stop looking around. She probably looked as inconspicuous as a stormtrooper, jittery as all heck and- quiznack get it together woman. Think! Next step. What’s the next step. 

Communication. No. They couldn’t communicate. Team Voltron was compromised. Allura had agreed with Hunk and Pidge that they would have to search all the hospitals in one day and meet back at the safe house at 2100 hours, with or without the Black Paladin. So to the safe house it was.

Her eyes flew to her surroundings, as if finally grateful to have something to actually focus in on. She had to get her bearings. Where in the city was she anyway? Good field work Pidge. Solid. A paladin should always know where to go and where they are at any given time. And she was completely lost now.

Passing one of the last stalls, she snatched a phone that was still open and resting on the corner of a table.

Pidge purposefully ignored Shiro’s surprised face turned towards her. Ya, she could snatch stuff too. Shiro’s not the only person with a knack for thievery. 

As soon as they were clear of the market street, Pidge opened the maps app and orientated herself, walking off the sidewalk onto the empty cobbled street, attempting to get a better signal. 

“Hey, look at that!” She called to Shiro, who was standing at the curb, “We’re close- should only take us about thirty minutes to- woa!”

Pidge jumped three feet back as a large, black van skidded out of nowhere to stop in front of her, a large, silver, lion symbol almost bumping her nose. 

Shiro was suddenly beside her, grabbing her arm and standing in front of her protectively as the window opened and a voice demanded, “Get in. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAMF Pidge is a passion of mine.  
> Next chapter, a certain Red Paladin agent shows up!   
> Thanks for bearing with me! My laptop died so I had to get a new one and set it all up! It's been a crazy week haha!


	7. An Addition of Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Red agent everyone has been waiting for at last makes an appearance.

Daylight was fading fast, the darkness quickly occupying corners and alleyways within the city. Hunk clutched his nearly done coffee closer to his chest as a cold wind blew his hair into his face. 

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

Shiro hadn’t been in any of the hospitals he had checked out. None of them had a patient fitting his description and one hadn’t even had any of the Kremlin attack victims. 

Hunk hoped that Pidge had been the one to find Shiro. He hoped it so hard his chest ached. Because if she hadn’t found him, then they would have to search other places, such as the police stations and trauma centers, and then the morgues and he didn’t think anyone could handle that. 

Hunk rubbed his temple as a headache started pinching behind his eyes. Quiznack when did things get so complicated? Team Voltron had been formed for a little under a year and a half, and they had already suffered the loss of their leader and a catastrophic mission failure. All three of them, Lance, Pidge and himself, when compared to paladins like Alfor or Allura or Shiro, were so inexperienced it could be laughable. And now, they were faced with a potential terrorist bombing they were personally involved with and maybe the loss of another leader and a personal hero.

Hunk sipped the rest of his coffee and turned to make his way back towards the train yard. He wondered if Lance was awake yet. Allura was skilled in medicine and first aid, and Hunk knew Lance would be okay; he just had to see him, if only to ease the knot in his stomach that hadn’t unclenched since the first bomb rattled the truck. 

The thought made the corners of his eyes pinch together. The entire van had been shaking back and forth so much that, at first, he had thought it was an earthquake. He remembered looking to Pidge, to make sure she hadn’t fallen off her chair and saw her wide eyes, her brain attempting to already figure out what was wrong. He remembered seeing her outside as he carried an unconscious Lance back to the van and passing her, even as his leg protested painfully. She had been frozen to the spot, helpless and in shock, trying and failing to comprehend what she was seeing. He remembered how still Lance had been, how dirty his face looked and how his next thought as soon as he climbed inside was how to lay his friend down securely enough to leave him and go back for Shiro. Lance would have wanted him to, but before he could even move, Pidge and Allura were making plans to leave. He hadn’t wanted to- at all! Hunk’s entire being screamed at him to go back for Shiro, for his teammate, but he was outmatched by the two women who were already driving the van away from the carnage. 

And now, after all of that, he had yet to find the team member he had left behind.

Hunk crouched low as he came up to the train yard fence, absentmindedly rubbing his kneecap. It was fully dark now and the faded yellow lights of the fenced yard flickered, creating an eerie setting that could be the beginning of a Criminal Minds episode. He put his back against a shed wall and peered around. There was no guard at the glass gate house- he was probably doing his rounds or taking a smoke nearby. Either way, now was the time to move.

Hunk made his way carefully to the gate and saw that it was locked with an electric pass code. Glancing around, he took out his phone and clipped it into a chip reader at the bottom. Tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, Hunk worked quickly away at the lock, and with a few precise finger movements, the door clicked open.

Screeching horribly, the gate opened and Hunk abandoned caution. Someone could have easily heard that and he had to get to the safe house.

Just as he moved to make a run for it, bracing for the pain his leg would inevitably give, his eyes caught the newsfeed of the television inside the glass windows of the gate house. There was apparently a major accident in the river running through the city. It was vague without sound or subtitles of any kind, but the footage showed from a shaky phone video displayed a dark van speeding by, pursued by a similar dark vehicle. Suddenly, the pursued vehicle veered sharply and was sent spinning off the road, into the river and the shaky video ended. 

A cold feeling settled in Hunk’s chest. He recognized that vehicle make. He knew those vans.

The newsfeed continued and a security camera froze on the vehicle speeding through a red light. It zoomed up on the license plate, but that was not what sent Hunk sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him to the safe house. Above the license plate, was the unmistakable silver symbol that all AIS issued vehicles were branded with. A silver lion head.

Pidge recognized the silver lion AIS symbol on the black van as soon as she caught her breath. Storming around the vehicle, she wrenched open the door, 

“What the quiznack was that?! Did you want to give me a premature heart...” Her words died as she realized the van was occupied not only with a driver, but a passenger as well.

The other occupant seemed as shocked as she was. He had long black hair that flicked up at his shoulders and fell into his face. He was wearing a red jacket with a black hoodie underneath and, were those combat boots? He looked young. Probably about Lance and Hunk’s age if Pidge had to guess, and was at least part Asian with darkened eyes beneath a frown that seemed too natural to be less than a resting expression for him. He had his arms crossed and was now staring over her shoulder. Pidge turned around and noticed Shiro standing behind her.

Shiro’s lips were just closing as though he had just had his mouth open. The expression on his face was... well, it was complex. Pidge couldn’t decipher it. It was deeper than recognition and softer than resentment. It was such a difficult look that begged a history or story associated with it that Pidge wished she could have had more time to decode it. However, it disappeared almost as quickly as it was recognizable on his face. 

Pidge just narrowed her eyes and turned to ask the driver, “Who’s he?” She knew she was being rude but she had also just almost been run over, so deal with it. 

“Agent Green, meet Agent Red.” 

Pidge turned to the voice and realized there was one other ‘occupant’ in the van. A screen beside ‘Agent Red’ showed the square, militant face of none other than Kolivan Marmora, Chief Director of the AIS. Pidge immediately sobered, feeling red flush her cheeks. She climbed into the van, sitting on the seat opposite of the other agent, sputtering out a “Director, I didn’t realize you were here.” as she went.

“I’m not.” He said shortly. Though Pidge had only met the man two or three times in her AIS training, she recalled that the Director was never one to waste words, “Not since a bomb blew up the Kremlin.”

Pidge was about to say something defensive, but a siren was heard in the distance.  
Apparently, the siren was enough of a motivator for Shiro to jerk out of whatever stupor he had been in and climb in beside Pidge and close the door. As soon as the door was shut, the driver pulled away, making for a side road along the riverbank.

It was well past sunset now, and Pidge looked out the window at the river passing by backwards from her rear facing seat.

“Director.” Shiro greeted.

Kolivan barely nodded a return to Shiro as he continued, “Agent Black, Agent Green, meet Keith Kogane, Agent Red and an AIS analyst. He was working an undercover case at the south side of the Kremlin when the bomb went off so we pulled him out now that the AIS is a potential terrorist organization.”

Pidge went stiff, “What? But we didn’t do it!” 

She knew that the team, and AIS as a result, had to be suspect because of their proximity to the blast sight, but there was no way they had been detected as individuals in their mission by the Russian government, let alone associated with the AIS organization. They were agents. Discretion was what they were trained for, and they did it well!

“Quintessence was found in the blast vicinity and was used to create a more harmful explosive. The only terrorist organization who is known to use it is the Galra. Because we have such close association to them and are one of the only known agencies to exclusively pursue them, we would have been a person of interest from the beginning. However, the piggyback frequency directly tied the communication line handling the attack to team Voltron.”

Pidge felt a chill crawl up her spine. The piggyback frequency. They had all heard it over the coms: “Team Leader”, “Standing by to detonate.” That had been when Shiro had aborted the mission. The frequency must have not only been piggybacking their line, but broadcasting to the government lines as well, which meant that the Russians could pinpoint exactly where the line was and that was the AIS team Voltron’s frequency. 

“Quiznack.” Pidge hissed and pinched the bridge of her nose, suddenly feeling sick.

Suddenly, Shiro shifted beside her, “That was it!”

She turned to him but the other agent, the analyst- Keith- beat her to the question, “What was it?”

Shiro was wiping his hand on his jacket, “Do you have a pen?” he asked Keith. 

The analyst frowned, “A what?”

“Pen, do you have a pen?” Shiro waved his hand impatiently at him.

Keith blinked, but took a pen out of his jacket pocket. Shiro took the pen and grabbed Pidge’s hand. 

“Hey!” She exclaimed, but she didn’t resist. 

Shiro began drawing a face on her palm, a very specific face by the looks of it.

“Agent Black, what happened at the Kremlin?” Kolivan’s voice spoke up. 

Shiro all but ignored him as he looked back at Keith, “Analyst you say?” 

The young agent was suddenly defensive, “Look, if you’re implying that I made a bad call or didn’t work to help team Voltron, I-”

“Caucasian male, early sixties, about six foot four, one hundred and ninety pounds, light brown- almost yellow actually- eyes. Who is he?” Shiro cut Keith off and shoved Pidge’s hand into his face for him to see the sketch of a man’s face.

Keith narrowed his eyes at the drawing, “Erm, well, crude depiction, but by your description I would say that is Kurt Hendricks. One hundred and ninety IQ, served in Russian special forces, doctorate degree in Physics and Nuclear Endgame Theory. He was asked to resign more than a decade ago because, well,” here Keith paused and almost smiled, like it was an inside joke, “because he’s crazy.” Keith blinked at Shiro, “And he has brown eyes, light brown, but brown, I don’t know where you got the yellow from.”

“No,” Shiro shook his head, “I remember now, I woke up in the hospital remembering that I had to tell the AIS something, and it just came to me when the Director was speaking about the frequencies. I was making my way out of the archive hallways after the abort, when I walked by that man in the hallway. He was carrying a briefcase and our eyes met. I couldn’t do anything else but nod because of the abort, but I remember. His eyes were more yellow than brown, almost... sickly” Shiro paused, his eyes darting back and forth like he was beginning to realize something, “Zarkon.” He whispered.

Everyone in the van must have stopped breathing, because Pidge could have sworn they all had the same expression of shock on their faces.

“Explain Agent Black.” Kolivan spoke first.

“His eyes, Kurt Hendricks’ eyes, they were the same shade of yellow as Haggar’s when Allura showed me her photo this... wow, only this morning, in the van. It makes perfect sense! The explosive was rigged with quintessence and the explosion was set off to cover his tracks. Galra tracks. Alfor was killed by Haggar, the Galra’s witch, to obtain nuclear launch codes and I saw a man who could only now be Zarkon escape from the archive room, nuclear launch device in the case he was carrying. It could be weeks before the Russians notice it missing unless we tell them!”

“Kurt Hendricks is Zarkon.” Keith whispered to himself, voice shaking with the realization Pidge could feel constricting her breathing. 

The weight of what this meant to the AIS as a whole came over her like a cold finger down her spine. Zarkon had been a code name, a front, an almost god-like presence in the Galra empire for over a decade, his real identity remaining unknown. Until now.

“They won’t listen to us.” Kolivan sighed, “As far as the Russians are concerned, we just bombed the Kremlin and the blame, right or wrong, points directly to Team Voltron.”

Pidge shifted in her seat again. As far as Russia, and probably the world by now, were concerned, she was a terrorist. She had the sudden urge to look around and make sure they were alone on the road. There was a car far behind them, but nothing else.

Pidge’s heart began to pound inside her head as the Director continued, 

“As Chief Director of the AIS, I am initiating ghost protocol. The entirety of Team Voltron has been disavowed.”

Pidge sat upright. This couldn’t be happening. But Shiro remained calm, putting his hand on Pidge’s knee, keeping her quiet, “So what happens now?”

“You will be taken back to headquarters where you will all be labeled as rogue extremists and the Kremlin bombing will be hung on you and your team.”

Pidge was numb. This wasn’t a pull out or a rescue, this was an arrest. She was being arrested. She glanced at Shiro when his hand tensed on her leg, and she caught him glancing at the gun resting in a side pocket of Keith’s seat. They had to break out. They didn’t do it. They were innocent. She couldn’t go to jail. She still had to find her brother and her Dad! Pidge tensed and readied herself to claw Keith’s eyes out if she had to, to allow Shiro to retrieve the gun. They were not going to be blamed for this.

“Unless...” Both Pidge and Shiro’s heads whipped up to the screen as Kolivan continued, “you were both to escape somewhere between here and the airport, having assaulted Agent Red and the driver.”

Keith frowned, turning to the screen, “Sir?”

“You would then illegally scrounge whatever material and funds you could from a secret supply cache that I’ve overlooked, the same cache where your team is waiting at for further orders.”

“Sir, I don’t think-”

The director cut Keith off, “Team Voltron would then disappear and, this conversation, having never taken place, your intentions would be unclear, but if you or any of your team is caught or killed, they will be branded terrorists out to incite global nuclear war.”

A memory stick was ejected from a small port at the bottom of the Director’s screen.  
Shiro pulled it out and put it in his jacket pocket as the Director nodded at it, “Your mission. Should you choose to accept it.”

There was a long pause, Shiro taking all the information, staring at the Director through the screen with steady eyes. Pidge was glancing back and forth between the Director and Keith, who, by now, had given up on trying to get a word in. He had resumed his resting frown face and was looking at the floor with his arms crossed. Pidge almost smirked. Diva.

“Shiro, you were my best paladin.” Kolivan continued, “And I’m sorry it has come to this, after all the sacrifices you made.”

Pidge caught Keith glancing at Shiro. It was so quick, and he assumed his position exactly as it was before so fast that Pidge would have missed it if she had been staring anywhere else than right beside his head, out the back window. The car that had been behind them for the entire conversation was rapidly getting closer. 

She was about to nudge Shiro to direct his attention to it when-

Smash!

There was a shattering of glass all around them.

Bang!

Pidge was knocked to the ground by Shiro, screaming, “Stay down!”

The windows were exploding in bursts, showering her head in glass.

Bullets were slicing through the car. One went through the screen, cutting the Director off whatever he was yelling at them. Keith was suddenly on top of Pidge, his breath hot on her neck as he balled up with her at the bottom of the van.

“Drive! Drive! Drive!” Shiro screamed. 

Like the guy would be doing anything else, Pidge would have said if this were any other situation. As it was, she was covering her head with her hands, listening as the world became nothing but bullets and glass and the motor of the van.

Suddenly, the bullets came from the front as well, shattering the windshield. The driver never had a chance. 

There was a sudden lurch that would have sent Pidge through the side window had she not become suddenly weightless. She had no time to even be confused as to what was happening before she was thrown hard against the other side of the car, her side jamming painfully against the tops of the seats, her head hanging towards the shattered windshield. There was a weird, echoing sound of metal creaking as water suddenly lapped against Pidge’s forehead. 

The situation became clear to her in a burst of panic. Pidge jerked her head free, bangs dripping against her cheek as the van continued to fill quickly with the river water. The freezing liquid was splashing in from all sides as she struggled to sit upright, the nose of the van sinking towards the bottom of the filthy river. Her adrenalin filled panic turned to heart stopping, thrashing panic as she realized her body was jammed in between the seats, broken into twisted metal. 

Pidge struggled to find her breath. She was upside-down in a sinking van, filling with water, already touching the side of her head again. Oh God OhGodohgodohgod! She was stuck! She was going to drown! She couldn’t even open her mouth, the chilling water splashing into her nose, seeping down her chest and numbing her entire right side. 

Pidge suddenly raised her head, struggling to remain above the water, and gasped out, “He- he-elp! Sh-shiro help! Shiro!”

A strong arm was suddenly around her shoulders, pulling and yanking her up. The water rose to her face, beginning to seep into her ears and around her neck. A piece of sharp metal scratched her side and she yelped in pain but grabbed onto the body helping her. The thinner shoulders and slighter build told the back of her mind that this wasn’t Shiro.

Keith’s voice sounded by her ear as he moved to get a better grip, “Hold your breath, okay Green?”

Pidge swallowed a water-filled lungful of air as Keith suddenly pushed her down into the water already consuming her position in between the seats. Raw instinct flooded her limbs and she struggled and kicked against Keith, screaming and letting out all the air she had just swallowed. Suddenly, though, she felt herself come unhooked from the seat and wrenched upwards towards the back of the van.

Pidge came up gasping and coughing as they surfaced in an air pocket. Crouching her feet against the back seats, Pidge steadied herself in the water. Keith was already talking to Shiro who was also coughing at the other side of the van, 

“... can we all hold our breaths?”

Shiro nodded and looked to Pidge, “You alright?”

Pidge nodded before she could even answer honestly. The shock and panic had worn off to leave her shivering like an autumn leaf- and didn’t she have some injuries? Didn’t something hurt somewhere back there? It didn’t matter. If she couldn’t feel it, and could still move at the moment, that was all she need be concerned with. 

A spine rippling shiver trembled through her body, almost unbalancing her off of the top of the back seat. Quiznack, they had to get out of here.

She looked around, forcing her brain to focus in the darkness. They could barely see!   
Pidge was reminded again of the overbearing irony of the situation. This is exactly what she had always wanted, what she had whined incessantly about to both Alfor and Allura. To be out in the field, surviving and working as a real field agent, a real paladin. Oh how the universe loved to give her exactly what she wanted.

Shiro was moving beside her, holding her attention with a steady, firm voice, “Hey, Katie? Katie, look at me, there we go. We’re going to swim out and head for shore, okay Katie? Stick right by me, grab onto my jacket and swim as hard as you can. We’ll swim up river, and head for the safe house. We’ll make it and we’ll be okay, okay?” 

Pidge was mildly annoyed at how Shiro was talking to her like she was on the verge of panicking when she realized that was probably exactly what was happening. So she just nodded and kept her thoughts to herself. 

They would absolutely not be okay. They were wanted terrorists and they were disbanded and hurt and alone. But one thing at a time. One step before the others. Pidge took a deep breath that was surprisingly hard do. She tried again, slower. It worked better.

Step one: get out of the river. She grabbed the back of Shiro’s jacket with her gloved hand and breathed with him, quickly at first to oxygenate the blood, then one big one for the road. Why was it so hard to breathe deeply? There was no time to ask. With Keith right beside them, they submerged into the dark, quiet world of the Russian river. 

They exited through a broken window and Shiro crouched against the car, ready to use it to push off. Keith was already swimming up past them when there were muffled splashes heard above. Before Pidge could even register what it could be, Shiro was grabbing Keith’s hood and shoving him back into the car. Pidge heard things zing by all around her. Shiro was pushing her back into the car after Keith when she finally realized those were bullets! Whoever was after them were firing into the water where the car had submerged. 

Everyone burst into the air bubble, splashing as they oriented themselves.

“So what do we do now?” Keith asked, his voice cracking and betraying his fear. Pidge couldn’t blame him one bit.

They needed a distraction. 

“You’re right Katie.” 

Pidge looked to Shiro, shocked, realizing she had spoken that out loud. That wasn’t a good sign. She looked around, trying to focus on something, anything to wake herself up more. Why were her eyelids suddenly so heavy? Her eyes fixed on Keith’s red jacket, standing out in the gloom. That’s it. 

“R-red.” She gasped. 

Keith turned to her, “What-what is it?” His own voice trembling.

“N-no, no. Red. Bright red. T-the flare. A d-di-distraction.” Her entire body was shivering, her teeth clacking audibly. Every AIS vehicle was equipped with an emergency kit under the front seat. 

“Th-that’s an amazing idea K-katie! Hold on.” Shiro said and he dove and disappeared into the dark.

He was back before Pidge felt the awkward need to talk to Keith, “So... this happen to you a lot in the analyst office?”

Shiro was holding an unlit flare, “Keith, I need you to do this. It would take too long if I did and we don’t have the time. Take the flare, light it and stick it into the sleeve of the dead driver and push him down river. That will distract the shooters long enough for us to swim up river and out of their sightline.”

Keith was frowning and looked like he was about to argue but Shiro shoved it in his face, “Don’t make me pull rank Keith, I need you to do this and do it now.”

Keith looked doubtfully at the flare for another half second, but he took it and dove without another glance at Shiro. 

Pidge had lost feeling in her hands, regardless of the soaked and heavy gloves. Her toes and feet had been numb for a while now. She flinched at the bright explosion of light as Keith lit the flair and watched the water glow a bright red as he dove down to the driver, the water reflections dancing on the ceiling of the air pocket. The light from the flare moved out of the car and quickly faded as the body caught the current and was taken downstream. 

Keith resurfaced again and Shiro wasted no time, “Okay, let’s go!”

Pidge barely got a chance to fill her lungs with oxygen as Shiro dove and she grabbed his jacket again. 

She kicked as hard as she could, trying to keep up with Shiro’s powerful stroke, hanging on tightly as he basically dragged her through the water. They swam longer, and longer and longer still and Pidge began to think she couldn’t take another second of this and would have to resurface and get shot and what did air even feel like again quiznack she couldn’t take any more of this she absolutely had to surface, when Shiro started swimming up.

The three of them broke the surface under a bridge a ways down from the shooting. It was far enough not to be seen in the dark by anyone, but close enough so than the gunshots still reverberated around their ears. 

The freezing night air burned Pidge’s lungs as she gasped in mouthfuls of life giving oxygen, only resulting in making her cough more as it turned her throat ice dry. Quiznack why did her side ache so much when she did that?

Shiro and Keith weren’t fairing much better as their coughs echoed around the underbelly of the bridge. Shiro pushed them through the water towards the river’s edge, probably urging them to get away as soon as they could. They were making far too much noise.

They swam to a ladder nearby and climbed up. All three of them slipped and almost fell multiple times from numb limbs, adrenalin finally wearing off. 

Pidge made it to the top, her lungs still gasping for air, and her entire body trembling. Why was the world spinning? She couldn’t feel her legs and her side felt... odd? It shouldn’t feel odd... wait, didn’t something happen to it? 

She took three stumbling steps forward and collapsed onto the sidewalk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhangerrr!! Haha!  
> (Also, probably the longest chapter yet you lucky darlings)  
> This was probably my favourite chapter to write!   
> I hoped you all enjoyed it,  
> Please leave a kudos or comment if you did!


	8. To Catch A Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance wakes up and the others have to catch a train.

Lance woke to a bright light burning through his eyes. 

He whimpered and turned his head, only to have a sharp pain shoot through his temple, as if a metal bar was stuck right through his head. 

He became aware of a background voice, soothing and calm. His first thought was that it was Hunk, but after a beat, he realized that the voice wasn’t low enough.

Lance risked opening his eyes again and saw the overhead light blocked out by a slim face haloed with white hair. Allura.

She was speaking to him in a low, mellow tone that he still couldn’t quite make out, and she had his head cupped in her hand. Lance tried to flash a flirtatious smile at her- he should be seeing her from this angle more often- but his entire shoulder suddenly flared up in pain. Every sensation was suddenly crystal clear, flooding his brain with an overwhelming barrage of signals. Lance arched his back, struggling as he hissed out a pained moan.

“Lance! Lance, its okay, you’re safe, just breathe! Please, just breathe. No, no, stay still, you’ll only hurt yourself further.” 

Allura’s firm grip kept Lance from pitching himself off whatever bed he was on. Quiznack, she was strong. 

He finally calmed down enough to focus on Allura. His breath was still fast and his entire side was burning so fiercely it felt cold, but he was awake now for sure. 

Lance looked into Allura’s wide, tropic blue eyes, voice cracked and ugly sounding as he asked, “What happened?” 

 

Shiro pitched himself forward, catching Katie just before she hit the cement sidewalk. 

She already had an arm out to catch herself as Shiro lifted her slowly back to her feet. She was trembling, muttering a steady stream of obscenities.

Keith was by his side now, a presence Shiro was all too aware of, like a dark cat. And he had yet to figure out if the cat was a house cat or puma. It bothered him slightly that Keith had yet to reveal himself. Shiro did not like guessing games. 

Keith had knelt down and was cursing, his had hovering over Katie’s side. 

Shiro looked, eyes widening. Red was blending with the dripping river water from Katie’s clothes as it pooled about their feet. He slowly lifted the bottom her shirt just high enough to see a long cut along her side, blood seeping out slowly in cloudy riverlettes to fade and blend with her soaking body and wash to the ground. It wasn’t deep, but definitely in need of stitches and cleaning after the filthy river water. There was no telling how much blood she had lost already. 

Shiro looked up as the night was suddenly silent. The gunfire had ceased. 

He turned to Katie, “I’m going to have to pick you up, okay Katie? We got to get out of here.”

Keith was taking off his jacket and wrapping it around Katie’s middle to staunch the bleeding. She gasped through her nose as he tightened it, but just made a whining noise like she was annoyed. Katie made to shake her head; her hair was in streaks on her face and dripping down her nose, “’M f-fne Sh-sh-hro.”

Shiro just nodded, already bending to lift her, “I know, I know you’re perfectly fine. You’re so strong, I wouldn’t dream of carrying you normally. I’m just being overprotective as the team leader. Can you maybe humor me?”

Katie mumbled something incoherent that sounded like “Papa Russian bear-man”, but didn’t resist as he lifted her, Keith steadying her head as she rested it on Shiro’s shoulders. Quiznack, she probably weighed little more than eighty pounds and every inch of her was still soaking wet and shivering. Shiro breathed through his nose. Katie may not be in any life threatening danger yet, but she- they all- needed to get to the safe house soon and warm up before the night got much older and they became hypothermic. 

“Let’s get to the safe house.” He grunted to Keith, and they made their way towards the train yard.

 

Hunk burst into the safe house.

Allura whirled around, a gun in her hand appearing from nowhere and pointing at his head. 

“Hunk!” She gasped, lowering the gun immediately, “What are you thinking? I could have shot you!”

Hunk would have normally apologized. He would have normally announced his entrance to whoever was in the room. He would have normally have done a lot of things, but they were all secondary as he made a beeline for the television on the wall, grabbing the remote and flipping to a news channel.

“You have to see this Allura.” He breathed.

There was a commercial, so Hunk took the pause to turn to Lance, who was looking at him quizzically with half closed eyes.

Hunk felt a weight lift from his shoulders as his friend’s blue eyes meet his, “Hey buddy, it’s so good to see you awake.”

He walked over to Lance and looked him over, “How are you feeling?”

Lance shifted, as if assessing himself before answering, “Actually not that bad. I think I could even sit up if you’d give a poor Cuban boy a hand.”

Hunk looked doubtful, “I don’t know man, you should probably stay down for a little bit longer.”

Lance rolled his eyes lazily, “Dude, I’m fine, really. I woke up a while ago and Allura’s kept me lying down for, like, ever. Come on, come on, help me up.” He raised his hand, already pushing himself off the bed.

Hunk sighed but grabbed Lance’s offered hand and put his other arm around his back, steadying his friend as he helped him sit up.

“Oh my God.”

Both Hunk and Lance paused in their movements when they heard Allura’s hushed words. 

The screen showed the video feed of the AIS vehicle flipping over the rail again and into the river.

Lance’s eyes widened, “That’s...” 

Hunk nodded, “I saw it on the television at the railway entrance.”

Allura’s eyes never left the screen, “Do you think that they...?”

Hunk knew the end of the sentence. Were Shiro and Pidge in there? They were due back any time now. Or, at least, Pidge was. There was no guarantee she had found him. Or that she was in the van. Or even 100% that that was an AIS vehicle. But the lion head symbol was still visible above the shown license plate. There wasn’t much more of a guarantee than that. 

Hunk could hear the Russian reporter now. His Russian was rusty but he could make out “terrorist suspects”, “at 8:40pm”, “Search warrant” and “no one pulled… wreckage yet”

Hunk breathed out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. 

So they got out then. ‘They’ being maybe hopefully not Pidge and Shiro. 

Lance seemed to come to the same conclusion. His shoulders stooped and he relaxed more in Hunk’s arms that were still around him. 

Hunk looked at Lance again. 

The young agent was still in the singed clothing he had been wearing at the Kremlin, but his skin was cleaned up from the ash and grime he had been covered in before. Thank the stars it had been mostly that, dirt and soot. 

Still, there was bruising around his cheek bone and his head and shoulder were wrapped in bandages. The pain medication seemed doing its work, however, and Lance was already more alert than he had been when he had gotten up. 

Hunk was proud of his friend. Lance would be fine. 

Hunk’s heart ached. He couldn’t yet say the same for Pidge or Shiro. 

 

By the time the three agents were at the railway yard, Katie was walking on her own, though she was helped along by Keith who was more suited to have his arm around her than Shiro’s height would allow. 

Shiro stopped at the railway gate, noticing it was ajar. 

He held up his fist for Keith and Katie to stay where they were while he took a quick look around the area. There were no workers in the vicinity but the trains were still moving in the distance. 

Satisfied there was no immediate danger, Shiro signaled to Keith and Katie and they came up behind him.

The three of them stuck to the shadows like wraiths, weaving in and out of the train cars as they made their way to the back end of the yard towards the safe house. 

They had just climbed over their third set of train hitches when Keith spoke up.

Shiro had to admit, he was not expecting the red agent to initiate conversation, but he was glad one of them broke the silence.

“Why would that work?”

Shiro turned, making sure he wasn’t just talking to Katie. Keith’s dark eyes looked up at Shiro, hooded by his long bangs, still wet and stringy.

“What do you mean?” Shiro asked, leading the way along the next train blocking their way. 

“I mean, the flare on the body—why would that work?”

Shiro looked back at him again, raising an eyebrow, “It did work.”

Keith wasn’t satisfied, “Yeah, I know, but why? How did you know that would draw their fire?”

Shiro kept walking, peering in between the train cars, moving in a sideways shuffle. They were getting close to the safe house, “I didn’t know. Katie had a brilliant idea, and I went along with it.”

Shiro looked back again and Keith looked at Katie, “Okay... alright. So, what was your scenario? You’re trapped in a car under water and have people shooting at you, so you take a flare and put it in a dead driver’s sleeve and send him upriver as a distraction? I mean, all of a sudden, a guy lights a flare and starts to swim around? What did you think the shooters were thinking?”

To her credit, Katie lets out a snort and gives Keith an incredulous look, “I never assumed they were thinking.”

Shiro stopped walking and faced Keith, “Katie’s right. They were shooting at anything that moved, so we just gave them a target.”

“Those guys wouldn’t be Oxford scholars, you know.” Katie grinned.

Keith just blinked at them both and nodded. 

There was a heavy pause and he looked up at Shiro again, “This is really happening, isn’t it?”

Shiro nodded back, eyes going soft, “Yeah. It is.”

A loud horn sounded through the night.

They all looked up and around as a train two rows away began moving. 

“You know what that sound is?” Shiro asked, scooping Katie up with a single swipe.

“That’s our ride outta here!” Katie exclaimed, a grunt in her voice her only show of discomfort.

The AIS agents clamored over a flat train car, running along the moving train that was slowly but surely picking up speed. 

“It’s number forty-seven!” Katie shouted from her position in Shiro’s arm.

“I don’t see it.” Keith called, ducking and weaving up and down the train.

Shiro was running back, also frantically looking, chanting to himself, “Number forty-seven number forty-seven.”

Keith joined him in running against the train’s movement when he suddenly skidded to a stop, hissing “Oh shit!” and turned around in a sprint.

Shiro caught sight car number forty-seven passing them by and also swung around, running to catch up to the ever faster moving car.

“Woa woa woa!” Keith put his hands out to swing himself around an electrical pole right beside the train tracks. Shiro ran around it too as they narrowed in on the safe house car.

“This is it!” Keith called, doing a running-jog to keep pace with the car.

Shiro recalled that a code would have to be entered to open the car. Keith wouldn’t be in the manifest as this safe house was not designed for his mission, and Shiro had his arm full. 

Katie tensed her muscles, already coming to a similar conclusion. Pulling her legs up, she called to Shiro in a tense voice, “Just give me a boost and I’ll do it.”

Shiro nodded and gathered her better in his arm, trying not to jostle her injury. 

He was just about to push her up against the cart when Keith called again, “Watch out!” 

Shiro yanked Katie back just as another electrical pole grazed the ends of her hair. 

Once clear, Shiro pushed Katie up against the cart, straining to keep her steady and balanced.

“Passcode please.” The manifest’s feminine voice chimed brightly.

Katie kept glancing ahead at the next oncoming electrical pole as she keyed in the numbers. 

Shiro had to pull her back quickly again as the pole passed, almost sending them both to the ground.

“Press enter.”

Katie cursed under her breath about AIS technology and bitchy computers, reaching her arm out as Shiro pushed her closer once again.

An ovular shaped device rose from the keypad.

Keith pointed at his eyes and back at the device from his position ahead of them, “Retinal scanner!”

“You gotta be quiznacking shitting me!” Katie hissed and Shiro moved her close again, his arm burning under the continual strain. She may be only eighty pounds, but she was still eighty pounds of wiggly arms and legs that was currently balancing at the end of his forearm.

Katie tried to reach her face up to the scanner but she couldn’t stay in a single position long enough in Shiro’s arm.

The train car was gaining speed as it neared the end of the railway yard. Soon, they wouldn’t be able to keep up.

An electrical pole passed them again. After it flew by them, Katie swung herself towards the scanner, launching herself out of Shiro’s grasp. She caught herself against the hand rails attached to either side of the manifest and smashed her face into the scanner. It beeped a cheery “Agent confirmed” and the car door opened to a black interior.

Katie jumped from her perch into Shiro’s outstretched arm, hooking her arms around his neck like a monkey. 

Keith hopped into the car and Shiro put on one last burst of energy, tossing Katie to Keith inside and pulling himself up just as the last electrical pole whizzed by and the train exited the railway yard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry for not posting this earlier this week! I have no excuse other than life :/   
> Anywho! Note that I added the final chapter number! This is the second last chapter of THIS story in the Voltron Protocol Series  
> Note the SERIES word- Never fear my loves!   
> Voltron Protocol: Dubai *gasp* is coming!   
> Please leave a kudos or comment and let me know if you enjoyed it!


	9. The Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mission is given.

The door shut and LED lights flickered on.  
All three AIS agents were sprawled on the ground, looking up at three more agents, each holding a gun to the intruders.  
“Pidge?”  
“Shiro!”  
“Oh man, we thought you were dead!”  
“What happened?”  
“Who’s this?”  
Shiro looked at Allura, who had asked the last question, motioning at Keith with her gun.   
“We took an unexpected swim in the river. Sorry we’re late.” Katie said from the ground, voice strained as she turned herself over onto her back.  
Pushing himself to his feet, Shiro allowed himself a tired grunt as he motioned an introduction with his hand, “Agent Allura Aris, this is Keith Kogane, analyst.”  
Allura lowered her gun, looking Keith up and down as he too rose to his feet, “Analyst?”  
Katie was still on her back her with knees up and her feet resting on the floor. She let her head fall back as she sighed in relief.   
Shiro motioned to Keith as they helped her to her feet.  
Katie winced and hissed through her teeth. The adrenalin was probably wearing off. All three of them still had to get out of their cold clothing and Katie needed that cut stitched up.  
Hunk was by her side in an instant, “Pidge, are you okay? What the quiznack happened? You’re bleeding!”  
Katie just smiled at him, exhausted and content now that she was in safe hands. She allowed herself to be babied as Hunk took her over to the hospital bed that Lance was hopping down from, putting his gun that had previously appeared in his hands away.  
Shiro was surprised how relieved he felt, seeing Lance alive and well, if not a little beat up. Despite Lance’s chatter and pauses during the Kremlin mission, Shiro had quickly grown very fond of the warm and open agent. Lance was a talented disguise artist and a skilled agent with a surprisingly welcoming and empathetic heart, even after over a year in the field. All the Voltron agents possessed these qualities. Shiro knew other AIS agents who were transformed in under half of the field time they had under their belt, and most were twice as old. The innocence of an AIS agent was a lot more precious than most people gave it credit for.   
Watching everyone get settled, Shiro remembered the memory stick in his pocket.  
He walked over to a television on the side wall that was showing Russian news. Shiro took out the memory stick and clicked it into the side of the screen. While the mission information was displayed to him and he put on a pair of wireless headphones, the rest of Team Voltron got settled. He heard Lance and Keith bickering to each other (that didn’t take long Shiro almost smiled to himself. He had suspected the Red and Blue agents would clash, or maybe opposites attract. He had a running bet with himself in favor of the latter) and Katie telling Hunk about their adventure. Like a spunky toddler, she seemed none the worse for her ordeal and couldn’t seem to get out her words fast enough.  
Less than three minutes later, after Shiro had listened to enough of the mission the Director had given him and his team. He straightened and displayed a video on the television screen. A Russian voice was heard, catching everyone’s attention.  
Shiro rested himself against the side of the screen as Keith and Lance came over to get a better look, Keith rubbing a towel through his hair. Allura and Hunk were close by, attending to Katie, but the volume was loud enough that they too could hear.   
“How will the world finally end?” a woman’s voice translated a man’s Russian speech. The screen then displayed a well-dressed man addressing a congress. He was younger than he had been when Shiro saw him at the Kremlin, but it was Kurt Hendricks, without a doubt. Shiro noticed Keith recognize him immediately as well.   
Hendricks, or Zarkon as they now knew, continued his speech, “It is my job to predict the unthinkable. To treat the death of billions as a game.”  
Lance was fingering his lip as he listened, eyes blinking as he took in the information.  
“After twenty years of this, I was numb.” Zarkon passionately raised a hand to his audience, “Until a new question crossed my mind: What happens after the end of the world? Every two to three million years, some natural catastrophe devastates all life on earth. And yet, life goes on and what little remains, grows even stronger. Put simply, world catastrophe is an unpleasant but necessary part of evolution.”  
Keith, now changed into a warm burgundy sweater, leaned against a wall.   
Hissssss  
He accidentally activated a leaver and the wall rolled away to reveal a wall of weapons, startling everyone in the car.  
“Ow! Watch it!” Katie squeaked.  
“Sorry Pidge, almost done.” Allura muttered, glaring at Keith who raised his hands in apology, before continuing to stitch up the Green Agent’s side.  
Lance shook his head at Keith, earning him a glare in return. Hunk just looked amused.  
“And so, I ask you,” Zarkon was raising his fist, “what happens when mankind faces the next end of the world catastrophe? I look to Hiroshima, Nagasaki, thriving cities rebuilt from the ashes, monuments to the unimaginable that I must imagine. Metropolises dedicated to the concept of peace. It occurred to me here that nuclear war might have a place in the natural order, but only if it could be controlled, directed, specified. Only if it touched every living soul equally.”  
The feed paused there with Zarkon looking at the camera with a steady gaze, confident and convinced.  
It was like something out of a movie. If Shiro could barely comprehend that someone would actively- passionately- believe with conviction that the solution to the world’s problem was nuclear destruction, and was, in fact, in the perfect position to put such beliefs into fruition, then what must the others be thinking?  
Lance’s jaw had dropped and he was looking around at everyone who bore similar expressions of shock.  
Shiro picked up the remote and clicked it to the screen, addressing the team, “The AIS now believes this man, Kurt Hendricks, is and has always been Zarkon, leader of the Galra Empire. A nuclear extremist, he was seen leaving the Kremlin today with what is likely a nuclear launch device. Five months ago,” Shiro clicked the remote and a familiar picture appeared onscreen,   
“Honerva Haggar, rogue assassin and known high ranking Galra member relieved Agent Alfor Aris of Russian nuclear launch codes.” Shiro paused and watched Team Voltron shuffle and blink, hard faces looking to him with trust and resolve.   
Shiro took another breath, clicking the remote again, “Intel indicates she will check into the Burj Khalifa Hotel in Dubai in 56 hours.”   
He clicked again and an image of a tall, cruel looking man appeared, “General Sendak is a newly promoted high ranking Galra official and is currently on rout to Dubai. Intel suggests he has not yet met Haggar, nor she him. We will use this to our advantage. For the device to work, Zarkon needs the activation codes, so he has sent Sendak to buy them from Haggar. Just because she is a member of the Galra doesn’t mean she does what she does for free. She’s more of a freelance assassin who works for the Galra on the side. We were fortunate that this drop is taking place now and not sooner. Why this exchange didn’t happen months ago, we are unclear about, but it probably has something to do with either the timing of retrieving the nuclear launch device or a disagreement on payment, which could mean inner struggles or power plays are at hand, so be vigilant.”   
Shiro put down the remote, looking each agent in the eye as he continued with his voice low and solemn, “The blame for the Kremlin bombing has been placed on Team Voltron.”   
Allura parted her lips, Lance straitened up, Hunk let out a low gasp and Katie just narrowed her eyes.   
“The Director has initiated ghost protocol. Team Voltron and the AIS has been officially shut down. No satellite, no safe house, no support or extraction. The six of us and the contents of this car are the only remains of Team Voltron and the AIS. We can’t reach out, we can’t call for help and any action as of this moment is unsanctioned.” Shiro sighed and smiled softly,   
“I hold each and every one of you in the highest respect. Frankly, you’re all far too young to be wanted fugitives already, but if you get out now, you can probably disappear with little to no trouble. No one will think less of you and no one would be wrong to want to get out now. If you choose to, we will provide you with what supplies and equipment we can give and wish you well.”  
Shiro paused. He let the silence stretch. And then he let it stretch longer. No one spoke. No one moved. He let his gaze settle on Keith, who looked back at him steadily. Not that Shiro was surprised. Keith had never been one to run away from anything.   
Looking around at the same resolve on the other agents’ faces, Shiro didn’t know if he wanted to laugh for joy at the loyalty of these young agents or cry at their brave stupidity. But it was their choice, and quiznack they had made their choice.   
Lance stepped forward then, his blue eyes narrowed and voice unwavering, “Thank you Shiro, but we’re family. We’re not going anywhere.”  
Shiro nodded his thanks and continued, his voice slightly more taunt, “Our mission is Zarkon. We’re all that stands between him and his goal of global nuclear war. This is as real as it gets. Nothing can be left to chance. Everyone connected with him is considered an asset with valuable information about our target and the Galra Empire. No one can know that we are still operational. We lose Zarkon now, we lose him forever. This is as close as any AIS agent or team has come to taking him down and we will not blow this.”  
Allura nodded, “So what’s the play?”  
“Sendak will meet Haggar in 56 hours. Now, we cannot let the launch codes leave the hotel, but we need Sendak to lead us to Zarkon.”  
“He’ll only do that if he has the codes.” Keith said.  
“Or if he thinks he has them.” Katie spoke up.  
“Our objective,” Shiro continued, “is to intercept the sale, replace the authentic codes with counterfeits and follow Sendak to Zarkon.”  
“Well that’s simple enough,” Hunk motioned with his expressive hands, “we snatch the codes from Haggar, we technologify some fakes; Allura, you double Haggar and Shiro, you act as Sendak and there we have it!”  
“And how do you suppose we just ‘snatch’ the codes from Haggar?” Keith asked, using air quotes.  
“We take her out.” Allura’s voice was ice.   
Hunk nodded to her, “Ya, you know, take her out but, like, discretely.”   
“Discretely?” Keith echoed.  
Lance stepped forward, “Yeah mullet, discretely. Don’t know if you remember, but I, Lance McLain, sharpshooter extraordinaire, was your chief rival at the Garrison. If anyone needs to be ‘taken out’, they come to me.”  
Keith cocked his head, “Have we met before?”  
Lance deflated, “Of course! Back at the Garrison? We were in the same year? Lance and Keith, neck and neck, bitter rivals?”  
Keith seemed to lose interest, “I don’t remember. Besides, we can’t take Haggar out.”  
Lance grew indignant, “Why? You don’t think I can? I would like to see you take out a suspect at one hundred and fifty miles downwind on a cloudy day- oh.” Recognition dawned on Lance’s face and he turned to Shiro, raising a finger, “She’s an asset. Right. I get it. My bad. Nothing left to chance.”  
“We don’t touch Sendak. Or Haggar.” Shiro looked pointedly at Allura.  
Allura looked at him. The ice in her voice from before was replaced with fire in her eyes.   
Shiro blinked under her glare, but he stepped closer to her and put his hand on her shoulder, “She’ll pay for Alfor, I promise, but it has to be when I say. After we hit Zarkon.”   
There was a tense pause but Allura finally nodded, her head barely moving.

The next few hours were a hectic bustle of organized chaos as the AIS agents stripped the car bare of supplies and equipment; Shiro’s orders of “take only what you need” falling on the ears of Lance, Hunk and Pidge who took the order to mean more of a “well, you never know.”  
Guns, mostly hand-helds and pistols, as well as Lance’s sniper rifles, and ammunition were loaded into duffle bags.   
Pidge made sure she had at least three laptops and various other devices all working and continuously swiped and cleaned all the activity of Team Voltron from the safe house network as they packed.   
Hunk was everywhere at once, making sure there were masks, cutting equipment, an assortment of disguises and costumes being packed, as well as a few experimental projects he deemed worthy to bring. He also shoved various forms of food and liquids at his fellow agents, urging them to eat. He did not let Shiro, Keith or Pidge out of his sight until they had consumed a full plate each of a microwave dinner and had drunk two glasses of water a piece. He also made sure Shiro changed his clothing into something dry and warm.  
Allura went over the details of the mission with Shiro when he was available and purchased the plane tickets and hotel rooms online with what was left of their allowance (through encrypted software and fake names pinged off seven different satellites), all while making sure the packing did not descend into complete anarchy.   
Despite all the commotion, within three hours they were at the airport and, bless the Director to the stars, flew to Dubai on a private jet with no hassle from security.  
The most dangerous mission of their lives had officially begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, Voltron Protocol: Russia has ended!   
> Thank you thank you THANK YOU ALL SOOOOO MUCH!!!!   
> The response has been absolutely incredible and I thank each and every one of you for your kudos and comments, they mean the world to me. Really.  
> On a practical note, I am not going to name a specific date, but, in less than three weeks, Voltron Protocol: Dubai will be launched so follow the series to get notified!   
> I like to have at least the majority of a story written before I post it, so even though I have a few chapters already, I need to finish it up first.   
> I will, however, be posting a preview next week as an epilogue to this story, so stay tuned!!  
> Hopefully, so you are all not completely left alone without Team Voltron in your lives between stories, there will be art coming!   
> Woo!  
> Follow me on tumblr- narniac4aslan- for the art to come and I will also see if I can post it with the new story as well... though I still have to figure out how to do that haha!  
> Wow! Long end note! Thank you for bearing with me!  
> PLEASE let me know what you think, what you liked, disliked, what questions you need answered, what you think will happen, WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAPPEN! Seriously, I love suggestions- tell me what you got! Or a simple smiley face will do just as well :)  
> Thank you all again SO MUCH!!!!  
> See you all SOON!!


	10. Preview and Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A preview of the next work in the series, Voltron Protocol: Dubai and some art!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... this was way overdue lol!! The response to this fic has been amazing! Thank you everyone for your support!! I can't promise when Dubai will come up but I'm hoping sometime at the end of May or early June as I am on vacation soon for a few weeks!  
> Until then, here's a sneak peak of what I have so far and some art I did as well as a link to some amazing fan art!! Have an amazing spring!!  
> In the meantime, feel free to subscribe to the Voltron Protocol series so you will be notified when I post the Dubai fic!

______________________________________________________________________

“Anakin had it right.” Pidge grumbled to herself as the shifting sand from the dunes of the wide desert blew up again against the Jeep windows.  
Keith, who was sitting in front of her, turned, “What did he have right?”  
Pidge stuck out her tongue to get some grit out of her mouth, “Pppffft. The sand. It gets everywhere.”  
“You’re telling me.” Lance wiped his forehead and flicked sand specks towards Keith, who slapped Lance’s hand away.  
_____________________________________________________________________

Making up his mind to get Lance’s attention and to not just leave his ass in the lobby took longer than Keith would have liked to admit.  
“Hey.” He said, sharply, but not loudly.  
Lance let his head fall back so he could see Keith out of the corner of his sunglasses. The impish smile he gave Keith suddenly made him wish he had just left Lance to talk to the girls. As it was, Lance was shrude enough to realize that the rest of the Team had gone and winked his goodbyes to the girls. Keith was almost surprised Lance hadn’t kissed their hands.  
_____________________________________________________________________

But there was something more.  
Keith’s suspicions had developed out of bits and pieces of ongoing arguments, and took root when he noticed certain pains in each of the trio as they travelled to Dubai. Lance blinked a lot in sudden changes in lighting and rubbed his eyes out of habit when he shouldn’t. Hunk favoured his left leg and rubbed it when he was sitting down, and Pidge wore gloves. Always. Even here, in the heat of the desert. He would have thought she was a germaphobe of some kind, but she had sneezed directly onto her gloves on the plane ride over, and then wiped her nose. She still hadn’t changed out of them.  
_____________________________________________________________________

“Why are you typing like that?” His mouth betrayed him before he could stop himself. Keith cursed inwardly in the silence that followed.  
Everyone was looking at him. Lance and Hunk were looking at him and then at Pidge, back and forth like a pendulum with mixed emotions of protective instinct and anger, and Shiro was frowning. Pidge was looking at Keith with some combination of shock and confusion.  
Keith cleared his throat, “Sorry, I... um, I didn’t mean to... sorry. You don’t have to-”  
Before Keith could finish, Pidge pulled off her gloves.  
________________________________________________________________________

… That's when the bomb went off."  
Hunk swallowed. All he remembered was an orange light and a horrific boom that rattled him to the core and then nothing but a high-pitched sound ringing through his head and then… fire. Beside him, on the couch, he heard Lance take in a shuttering breath. He placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder.  
________________________________________________________________________

“Hot holy QUIZNACK MOTHER OF-” Katie slammed her head onto the table, letting out a moan resembling that of a wild bear.  
Everyone stopped what they were doing. Shiro, finally gathering some bravery, walked over to her, “What is it Katie?”  
“Oh, nothing,” She didn’t lift her head as she placed another five dirham into the jar, “Just a slight wrinkle. Nothing to worry about. We’re just going to have to go into the server room from the outsi-hi-hide.” She ended in a desperately breathy laugh that held no joy.  
________________________________________________________________________

While Pidge walked over with the gloves, her face still way too excited for what he was about to do, Keith tied his longer hair in a small bun at the top of his head so it wouldn’t blow in his face. He could do little about his bangs as there were no headbands in sight.  
There was suddenly an odd noise that sounded like a choke from Lance’s direction, but when Keith looked up, Lance was staring rather intently at the processor of the mask creator and Hunk stood behind him, his hand clapped against his mouth.  
__________________________________________________________________________

Without much warning other than an intake of breath, Keith tensed, bracing himself, and started climbing. His hand shot up and pulled his body, his feet working to push him upwards and grip the window ledges as he climbed up to them.  
The last thing Lance saw of the Red Agent was his insanely toned calf muscles as Keith disappeared beyond their sight line.  
__________________________________________________________________________

Here is the link for the art!  
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/4thelions

Aaaaaand the fan art by the amazing carbonated.coffee!!  
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh7POIplAdd/?taken-by=carbonated.coffee


	11. Sand Gets Everywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team arrives in Dubai and are lookin' fine af.

Pidge had heard of what a desert was like before. She was sure most people had. But hearing about the place- the scorching sun, the relentless heat, the sand that gets everywhere- and actually being there were apparently extremely different things.  
“Anakin had it right.” Pidge grumbled to herself as the shifting sand from the dunes of the wide desert blew up again against the Jeep windows.  
Keith, who was sitting in front of her, turned, “What did he have right?”  
Pidge stuck out her tongue to get some grit out of her mouth, “Pppffft. The sand. It gets everywhere.”  
“You’re telling me.” Lance wiped his forehead and flicked sand specks towards Keith, who slapped Lance’s hand away.  
“Not only does Anakin have it right, but I sympathize so-ho much more with Luke now.” Pidge glared at the sun blazing on her through the window. Quiznacking lame excuse for a star.  
Hunk, who was sitting beside her, and in the shade, caught onto her train of thought, “And Rey. I mean, if I had to live on a desert planet all my life, I know I’d jump at the first opportunity to leave it.”  
Pidge turned her glare from the relentless sun to Hunk, aware that her sunglasses were hiding her eyes anyway. With humidity practically being nonexistent in the desert, the shade was quite refreshing. When you were in it.  
The Jeep they had rented and crammed into turned with the road, and at the insane speed Allura was driving at, the sun and shade traded places frequently, though it seemed the sun was determined to be on Pidge as much as it possibly could.  
Pidge looked to her lap where a bottle of sunscreen was resting. She had already put it on twice since they had been in the Jeep. But she once again felt the sun crisping her face to a nice red hue.  
Making up her mind, Pidge grabbed the bottle and squirted just a little this time, onto her gloved hand. She had long since exchanged her warm black gloves for thinner, cooler white ones with leather along the palms and under the fingers.  
Not only was the heat making her burn like a marshmallow, but it was also making her hands prickle. They had been sensitive to heat ever since they had healed. She supposed she now knew how old people felt when their hips acted up because of the cold.  
Pidge wiggled her fingers and made fists, trying to ease the uncomfortable tingling. She had to be on her top game for when they reached the hotel. She noticed Hunk looking at her from behind his sunglasses. As usual, nothing was escaping his notice. He would probably ask about it later.  
“So even if we can double Sendak and Haggar, how do we keep them in separate rooms while having them think they are in the same room?” Keith piped up.  
He was sitting in the middle with Lance. Pidge and Hunk were squished in the back. How Lance and Keith ended up sitting together, Pidge had no idea. But they had been asking ceaseless questions and bickering the entire flight and drive over. In fact, Keith and Lance had been arguing back and forth so much that Pidge could almost say that they were having fun at this point. At the very least, they fed off of each other, egging the other on just to get a reaction. Lance’s forward, talkative and competitive personality seemed to clash just right with Keith’s guarded, more ruthless and just as competitive manor.  
“We give the hotel a facelift.” Lance replied, winking at Keith. Keith looked a little taken aback. Pidge almost smiled. The red agent would get used to Lance’s flirtations. They all had in the end.  
“Sendak will think he’s arriving at Haggar’s sweat,” Shiro continued from the front, “but really he’ll be walking into our decoy room.”  
“Where I’ll double Haggar.” Allura finished from the driver’s seat.  
“Downstairs, Lance will double Sendak—” Shiro added.  
“Masks!” Lance interrupted in excitement, almost jumping in his seat.  
“—While meeting with the real Haggar.” Shiro smiled, “Pidge will man the computer and Hunk will act as room service to transport the diamonds that Sendak will give Allura to Lance who will give them to Haggar in order to get the real codes.”  
Keith nodded, trying to keep up with the complicated plan, rubbing the back of his neck, “And, uh, what am I doing?”  
“You? You’re the helper!” Lance slapped his back heartily.  
Keith sent Lance a withering glare, “Fine. So, to my understanding of what you’re saying here, um, the Burj Khalifa: it’s the tallest building in the world. And you want to alter its infrastructure with the hopes of convincing two people that they’ve had a meeting which actually really never happened... Right?”  
Allura just turned her head from the driver’s seat and gave a rather impish smile to the Red Agent.  
“Uhh- u-u-uuuuh! Allura watch out!” Shiro’s voice rose in pitch as a herd of camels on the road came speeding into sight.  
With a loud screech of tires and many heads bonking on the windows and doors of the Jeep, Allura masterfully wound around the camels without lifting her foot off the gas a fraction of an inch. Among the aftermath of swearing and the shocked squeaks of the occupants, a chuckle, bordering on a delighted giggle, could be heard from Keith.  
Pidge rolled her eyes. Adrenalin junkies. Allura and Keith will get along just fine.  
As they straightened out again and continued to speed along the road at white knuckle pace, the land flattened out from the hill-like dunes of the outskirts of the city to give Team Voltron an unhindered view of the metropolis oasis of Dubai.  
The city shone in the sun’s heat, silver buildings of mirror-like windows reached towards the sky like spires of a glass castle, blinding any who looked upon its modern glory. And there, towering above it all, was the Burj Khalifa. The tallest building on Earth. It looked tall enough from a distance, but as the team drove closer and closer, its height began to become awesome.  
Made of glass widows disappearing to a blur of grey and blinding sunlight, the structure was engineered to withstand sandstorms of hurricane magnitude. A hotel, business centre and residence, the Burj Khalifa was a masterpiece of workmanship.  
Allura drove past the famous Dubai Fountain, which looked to Pidge like a small turquoise lake, right up to the entrance of the building and all exited en mass, denying a bellhop and carrying their own luggage. As the team walked up to the door, Pidge straightened her shirt- not blouse- and noticed the others doing the same. She had to admit, they cleaned up nicely.  
They had changed out of their dirty, darker Russia clothes on the plane, and into professional business attire of pale, cooler shades.  
Allura walked at the front of the group like she owned the building. Pidge had to hide a smile as the doorman almost tripped over himself to let her in. She was quite intimidating and was dressed in a pale blue jacket and pencil skirt with black heels. Her white hair, which shone like snow in the desert sun, was done up in a bun. With skill that still baffled Pidge, Allura had strategically pulled strands of hair around her face to portray a dangerous combination of no nonsense business woman and beautiful bachelorette.  
The hotel staff were literally scrambling to offer their services as she declined all help with a flighty wave of the hand, and sped past them to the front desk where she would check them in.  
Shiro, who was following behind in a stoic and just as intimidating manor, was in a darker grey suit with a shimmery darker collared shirt underneath. He too, bordered strict business man and playboy. How he and Allura appeared simultaneously as both single and yet an item as they entered the building was a conundrum for Hollywood to figure out.  
They would have made terrific actors, Pidge thought mildly.  
Keith hung back by the indoor ponds with the modern silver art sculptures rising up from the mirror still water like trees. Standing against the hip- high border of the pond, leaning against it casually, Keith looked almost model- like in a fitted grey jacket, white shirt and dark red tie.  
Meanwhile, Lance was definitely model- like, with a darker blue suit and light blue collared shirt underneath, unbuttoned at the top. He was beside Keith, his arms folded and making googly eyes over the top of his sunglasses at girls walking by.  
Hunk was the only team member who was openly gawking at the structure. He had just entered from the outside, wearing a tan suit and a white collar shirt with yellow e mbroidery patterning the fabric and an open collar. He stood behind Pidge and continued to look around, unashamedly. As an engineer, Hunk was probably feeling like he was in Disney land.  
As for Pidge, she was wearing fitted white pants and a green formal shirt that was absolutely not a blouse. She had put up as much of a fight as she could, but eventually,  
Allura had squeezed her into a pair of stylish black two inch heels. She had worn heels before (for another disguise mind, not in any way of her own choosing), so balance was not a problem, but she still felt awkward when Lance had offered his hand to help her out of the back of the Jeep and she almost stumbled before finding her footing. She was now standing a little behind Shiro and trying her best not to look around like a tourist.  
She had been here many times, she told herself. She was a spoilt business tycoon’s child who was under the charge of family friends for a weekend away. She was bored. She could care less about the ceiling that stretched far into rafters, or the y-shaped floors that were based off of mosques and designed to give the most space for the hotel rooms.  
She didn’t care at all that they were really here on a world saving mission.  
Pidge felt her bag again to triple-quadruple check she had everything she needed.  
She took a deep breath and sagged like she was bored out of her mind, forcing herself to relax at least a little, closing her eyes behind her sunglasses she had yet to take off. No one had yet. It added to their killer aesthetic.

Keith noticed Pidge, Hunk and Shiro heading towards the elevators as Allura pinned a nametag to her shirt as soon as she was done at the counter, and disappeared through an ‘Employees Only” door. Keith moved to follow, but realized Lance still hadn’t moved from where he was talking up two girls.  
Making up his mind to get Lance’s attention and to not just leave his ass in the lobby took longer than Keith would like to admit.  
“Hey.” He said, sharply, but not loudly.  
Lance let his head fall back so he could see Keith out of the corner of his sunglasses. The impish smile he gave Keith suddenly made him wish he had just left Lance to talk to the girls. As it was, Lance was shrude enough to realize that the rest of the Team had gone and winked his goodbyes to the girls. Keith was almost surprised Lance hadn’t kissed their hands.  
The pair made their way to the elevators. Having missed taking the one with the rest of the team, they waited for another one. Keith remembered which room to go to from the briefing on the plane. He doubted Lance did.  
The elevator dinged its arrival and Lance walked in first and hit a button, “82 right?”  
Keith blinked, suddenly feeling bad for assuming the worst in the blue agent.  
The ride was silent.  
Until it wasn’t.  
“So... analyst huh?”  
Keith looked at Lance out of his peripheral vision, “Yup.”  
“Why?”  
Keith turned, “Why?”  
Lance nodded, completely comfortable and seemingly unaware how uncomfortable he was making Keith, “Why analyst? Out of all the areas a person with your skills and marks from the Garrison, why the quiznack did you sit yourself down behind a desk?”  
Keith turned his head back to the door, urging it to arrive faster, “Let’s just say, it wasn’t my first choice.”  
Miracles apparently did exist, and Lance shut up for the remainder of the elevator ride, which was no more than another twenty-five seconds, but felt like the proverbial ‘eternity’.  
With its cheerful ‘ding’, the elevator opened and Keith and Lance walked to their room and opened the door to organized chaos.  
Shiro was checking over the coms with Allura, “ETA on dry-cleaning?”  
“On my way up.” Allura’s voice was breathy and quiet, probably trying not to be heard as she came up the employee elevators.  
Keith liked Allura. She was no-nonsense and strong. However, he could tell there was tension between her and the rest of the team. Or at least, between her and Lance, Hunk and Pidge. The trio were as close as siblings, anyone could see that, and Allura seemed to be a desperate step-parent of some kind that had yet to earn the kid’s respect. Shiro appeared to just be just the sort of Dad the kids needed. As per usual.  
The Black Paladin was just like Keith remembered. Brave, kind and empathetic. Keith almost rolled his eyes. No wonder the trio already trusted him more than they did Allura.  
Keith had had his trouble with strict authority, just ask the Director (who didn’t exist anymore, Keith reminded himself), but he felt sorry for Allura. It wasn’t like she had done something wrong.  
Still, Keith felt like he had no right to judge. It had begun as a feeling that the trio were close, then developed out of bits and pieces of ongoing arguments, and took root when he noticed certain pains in each of the trio as they traveled to Dubai. Lance blinked a lot in sudden changes in lighting, and rubbed his eyes out of habit when he shouldn’t. Hunk favoured his left leg and rubbed it when he was sitting down, and Pidge wore gloves. Always. Even here, in the heat of the desert. He would have thought she was a germaphobe of some kind, but she had sneezed on the plane, directly onto her gloves and then wiped her nose with them.  
Keith’s eyes roved over the trio. There was something he was missing. Something big, and a part of their history. Something that only those who were directly involved would ever know what happened. And Shiro was not a part of it.  
Was it bad Keith felt a little better knowing that?  
Keith moved around the couch as Lance and Hunk continued unpacking, while Pidge pulled out the last of her tech and immediately set about hacking into the Burg Kalifa.  
Keith shuffled around to Pidge, trying to stay out of everyone’s way.  
He watched her type the codes as she fought to get into the building’s mainframe.  
Keith squinted as he watched.  
Something was off.  
Her typing.  
It was something that you didn’t notice until you noticed it.  
Then there was nothing else to notice.  
Pidge typed faster than anyone he had seen, but her fingers moved oddly.  
What fingers did one use while typing anyway?  
It wasn’t the ones Pidge was using, that Keith knew for sure.  
Her left pinky that was usually in charge of ‘shift’ never touched the keys, her right ring finger that was usually for the punctuation and ‘o’ and ‘p’ also never moved, and she used her thumbs way too much on the actual keys.  
It was a bazaar thing to watch, and Keith felt like he shouldn’t be watching. Like he was staring open mouthed at a person in a wheelchair. But Pidge was just typing oddly, it wasn’t a disability.  
And yet he felt awkward asking.  
“Why are you typing like that?” His mouth betrayed him before he could stop himself. He had such a bad habit of it, and he immediately vowed in the silence that followed to put a lid on it more carefully in the future.  
Everyone was looking at him. Lance and Hunk were looking at him and then at Pidge, back and forth like a pendulum with mixed emotions of protective instinct and anger, and Shiro was frowning. Pidge was looking at Keith with some combination of shock, curiosity and confusion.  
Keith cleared his throat, “Sorry, I... um, I didn’t mean to... sorry. You don’t have to-”  
Before Keith could finish, Pidge pulled off her gloves.  
Keith had no idea what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that.  
And what was under the gloves was not, in all his wildest imaginings, burns.  
Ugly burns. Awful burns. The type of burns that made you wince to look at them burns. The type of burns you see in TV shows and movies where the skin had literally melted off and regrown and scarred, leaving the area bumpy, full of pink and brown and white ripples and holes.  
Keith’s breath had caught and had yet to come back.  
Pidge looked down at her hands and clenched and unclenched them. Her movements were shaky in the minute way you only noticed if you were staring. The left pinky and the right ring finger were stiff and unresponsive.  
Keith swallowed.  
Pidge finally looked at him, her big, honey eyes soft, and Keith’s heart clenched. What the hell had happened to her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So HIIIIII :D  
> I'll just say this. I don't know when I'm going to finish this story, but I will post what I have. You guys deserve that much <3 Please enjoy!!!


	12. What Happened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth of what happened to the team is finally revealed

Hunk knew they were on a time limit.   
Hunk knew that there was no time for distractions, let alone time to do this now.  
And yet, he wasn't sure there had ever been, or would ever be, a more perfect opportunity.  
"After Alfor died," Pidge began, and Hunk's heart clenched in his chest. For all the times he had relived the memories and the flashbacks, none of Alfor’s Team Voltron had ever actually spoken about what had happened during those weeks directly after his death.  
"After Alfor died,” Pidge said again, voice quiet but steady, “We didn't really understand what would happen to us."   
Pidge shifted in her seat. Hunk was standing behind the couch across from her and Lance had slid down onto the armrest and was staring at his lap, rubbing at his eyes. Shiro was gazing steadily at Pidge from his position by the great windows to Pidge's left, and Keith was impersonating a statue, barely breathing or blinking.  
"We didn't know if the AIS would shut us down, or whether we would be expected to continue our field work, or if there was something completely new the agency had in mind for us. All this to say that, we were left in the dark for a while. A long while, and, well, you start to get antsy when you're not told things."  
Hunk didn't say a word, but he remembered Pidge's pacing and demanding and screaming at no one and everyone in their AIS sanctioned safehouse. To say that she had been 'antsy' was like saying she knew a ‘little bit’ about computers.   
"So I began hacking into the AIS to gain information on what they were going to do with us, and I came across old files containing coded messages about project 'Kerberos'."  
Keith finally showed a sign of life when his eyes widened at the word, but the one to visibly shift was Shiro. Both Hunk and Lance twitched their heads in his direction when he had stood up straight at the mention of the mission. But neither agent made to ask him about it. Hunk just put it away until later, and he was sure Lance did as well. Shiro knew something about that mission.   
Pidge nodded at Keith, "Everyone in AIS knows that mission, and that it was my dad and brother who went missing when the communications were tampered with by that ancient coding algorithm the Galra used to use. I told the Director so many times that this meant the Galra had my family, but he never did anything about it. He just told me there was no proof that it was the Galra this time, as they haven't used that algorithm for decades, and I thought that is exactly why they chose to use it again!"  
Pidge was speaking rapidly and was out of breath. Hunk had heard her say this in many different versions as she had dug deeper into the coded messages.  
"Using the same system the messages had been encoded in and applying the algorithm, I picked up Galra chatter. With Hunk's help, we fashioned a translator and tracker, so we soon had an entire decoding system set up for that specific Galra wave length."  
Hunk sighed, small enough that he didn't draw much attention. He had berated himself over and over again for not telling anyone about their tech. But, by that point, the AIS still hadn't so much as contacted them, and he and Lance were willing to help Pidge out as much as they could. Hunk and Lance had been as invested as Pidge in the coded messages by that point. The fact that it was something to keep them busy was the least of the reasons they were helping. They were a team, a family. Any problem of a member was a problem for them all, and neither Lance nor Hunk would have said no to Pidge. They never could.  
"Finally, we found something. An embedded location for a prisoner exchange between two Galra groups. The prisoners matched the numbers and names of my father and brother, Sam and Matt Holt. It was happening nearby, and the next night."  
Hunk saw that Shiro's brows had been lowering into his eyes as Pidge told the story. By now, the Black Paladin was frowning and his mouth was pursed into a thin line. Hunk knew Shiro could smell the trap even now, from miles and months away, but they sure hadn't.   
Pidge had noticed Shiro's face as well and nodded, sighing, "So, we took the bait and planned our unsanctioned mission. The location was an old warehouse by a river. Looking back, it's painful how obvious the trap was, but we were all overeager to be on mission again, and I wasn't- we weren’t ready, or willing to accept any alternative to the idea that I wouldn’t find my family again."  
"We actually had a pretty thorough plan,’ Pidge continued proudly, “And if it hadn't been the trap that it was, we probably would have succeeded. Lance was in a sniper position on an old water tower beside the building, Hunk would come in from the north, and I would come in by the south. We entered the warehouse and I saw two shapes, they were covered by a tarp and looked like they were the forms of two people hunched over on the ground. I ran over without a second glance and tore off the tarp… That's when the bomb went off."  
Hunk swallowed. All he remembered was an orange light and a horrific boom that rattled him to the core and then nothing but a high-pitched sound ringing through his head and then… fire. Beside him, on the couch, he heard Lance take in a shuttering breath. He placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder.   
Pidge stared at her hands, her voice shaky. Hunk watched her carefully as she continued, "The next thing I remember, I was waking up on the warehouse floor. Everything was burning, and my hands were on fire."  
It took a minute for Shiro and Keith to realize that she had meant literally.  
"You know," Pidge squeezed her hands, "It isn't the burned parts that hurt, those nerves are long dead. It’s the fried ends that still prickle or ache. The nerve ends that are frayed under the skin and have nowhere else to go anymore. That’s what hurts the most."  
Keith swallowed, as if he was having trouble trusting himself to speak, "And what about the rest of you?" He turned to Hunk and Lance.  
Hunk spoke up, "I fell from the staircase I was running down. I saw the tarps and noticed from the height I was at, that they didn't look right. I was sent flying and the floor collapsed under me and the landing dislocated my knee and broke my fibula. It was the firefighters who found us that pulled me up and out of the basement floor I had fallen into. I wasn’t even conscious until the next day."  
Lance, who hadn't looked up yet, slowly raised his head, his bright eyes shining, "I saw Pidge race towards the tarp from my position on a water tower just outside the ware house, and noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone was running away from the warehouse. I was about to speak into the coms when the explosion sent me reeling, almost making me fall off of the old water tower. The building was old, and some of the old boxes in it were filled with magnesium, which is the brightest substance on the planet, when lit. I was looking right over them at Pidge through my binoculars when they caught fire. When I woke up, I was blinded. I-I couldn’t see anything. The firefighters didn't even know to look for me and I was stuck up the water tower for hours before Allura found me and got me to the hospital. I was blind for two months after that. In the beginning, they weren't even sure I would get my sight back."  
Hunk walked around the couch and slid beside Lance, letting him rest on his shoulder. Lance was rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand and, after letting him have a moment to wipe away his tears, Hunk gently took his hands in his, letting them encompass Lance’s long wiry hands with his own, large, flat ones.   
“I’m sorry.”  
Everyone in the room looked up at Shiro.   
There was really nothing more to be said.  
Pidge slipped her gloves back on and flexed her fingers again, giving Keith one of her rare, kind smiles before getting back to hacking into the interface.   
With an unceremonious click, the door opened and Allura entered, carrying with her a bellboy’s outfit from the room service racks. Her sudden entrance seemed to snap everyone out of their own thoughts and the bustle began anew.  
Allura, for her part, paused at the doorway. She knew she had missed something.   
Hunk gave Lance’s hands one last squeeze before standing and approaching Allura.  
“Pidge just told everyone about ‘the mission’.” Hunk said.  
Allura blinked and her mouth parted, but it didn’t seem like a complete shock to her, “Well, I suppose it had to come out eventually… Um, did, um…” Hunk was almost surprised to hear Allura slip over her words. She was always so composed, “Did Pidge say anything about my part in that?”  
Hunk finally understood, “Oh, no she, she didn’t. Lance just mentioned that you had been the one to find him at the water tower. Nothing about how we weren’t allowed to go or anything.”  
Allura sucked on her bottom lip, but otherwise just nodded. Hunk couldn’t tell if she was pleased or upset or neutral about it all.  
“Forty-two minutes till door-knock.” Keith’s voice broke through Hunk and Allura’s thoughts and Hunk used the moment to turn his attention to the present.   
World saving mission.   
Galra.  
Nuclear war at stake.  
Right.  
Let’s do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one is a little bit shorter, but its the information everyone has been waiting for!!


	13. WheeeeeEEE!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is given a rather impossible mission

“Okay, thirty-four minutes till door-knock.” Hunk said, placing a phone timer on the table against Katie’s laptop that now read 33:57.  
Katie’s face was inches from the screen. She had been letting out interspersed curses as the rest of the team had gotten ready.  
Hunk had changed into the bellhop outfit, Lance had set up the mask creator to a profile of Sendak’s face while Allura prepped the special briefcase for printing.   
Shiro watched Katie out of the corner of his eye, making sure she was still okay after telling everyone what had happened. If Shiro had been protective of them because of how young they were before, he felt himself grow positively parental now. The kids were already scarred beyond belief, even by agent standards. And yet here they were, still functioning, still skilled… and still smiling.   
Who would have thought miracles still existed; and he was sure most of the credit had to go to Alfor and his teaching. He could only hope to live up to the same standard as he continued to lead the Team.   
The back of Shiro’s mind pressed that he was only assigned to team Voltron for this mission. That there was every possibility that he would be reassigned later. He pushed the thought back before it could form into words and spiral into his thoughts faster than he would have expected.   
Absolutely parental.   
Shiro almost grinned at himself. Look at him. He got attached so easily. Other paladin agents would warn him against such feelings, like they were some sort of Jedi who should not feel emotion, and Shiro understood the logic of it. The overturn and mortality of the job was too real and frequent to become attached in every mission, and yet, attachments tended to form quickly and deeply in intense life or death situations. What a paradox.   
Shiro looked around at the bustle and allowed himself to attach. In his experience, it was far better to have an attached team and suffer the consequences than a dispatched team and feel nothing after something happened. Though nothing would happen. Shiro would make sure nothing more happened to these agents.   
Shiro rubbed the bridge of his nose. The mission was a go. There was no time to lose himself in thoughts that had no benefit in the real world.   
Another string of mumbled curses, that sounded more like growls, came from Katie.  
“Alright, that’s it.” Lance said, pulling out a glass jar from some bag and waving it in the air, “I’m reimplementing the swear jar.”  
“Fuck off.”  
“That’s ten dirhams on its own, Pidgeon.” Lance placed the jar beside her laptop with a flourish.   
Shiro bit his bottom lip, waiting to Katie to explode, but she didn’t. Apparently only he and Keith showed surprise when Katie produced the money and shoved it in the jar.   
Lance flashed her a dazzling smile and a wink and Katie flipped him off and promptly shoved another five into the jar.   
Everyone had been giving Katie a wide berth. It seemed mostly because everyone seemed to assume she was having trouble hacking into the hotel, but no one had dared ask.   
“Hot holy QUIZNACK MOTHER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN” Katie slammed her head onto the table, letting out a moan resembling that of a wild bear.  
Everyone stopped what they were doing. Shiro, finally gathering some bravery, walked over to her, “What is it Katie?”  
“Oh, nothing,” She didn’t lift her head as she placed another five dirham into the jar, head still on the table, she touched the tips of her fingers to each other above her hair, “Just a slight wrinkle. Nothing to worry about. We’re just going to have to go into the server room from the outside.”  
There was a second of silence.  
Shiro’s eyebrows shot up and Hunk’s face popped up from behind the mask creator, “What.” He said it more like a sentence because he couldn’t have heard the statement right enough to acknowledge its possibility with a question.  
Katie finally lifted her head from the table and glared at her laptop screen as if she expected it to catch fire from her stare. Shiro was mildly surprised that it didn’t.   
“Well the quiznacking ffffffffirewalls,” She rapidly pointed a finger at the screen, her hand a blurr with the word, “on this building’s server are military grade!” Katie shrugged helplessly, “I mean, this would be a cinch if I could call support at the AIS, but the AIS doesn’t exist anymore, and neither do we. Now, I could hack it, don’t get me wrong, but it would take too long.”  
Shiro’s brain was whirring and clicking like an automaton, “Could you hardwire in?”  
Keith had come over to look at the screen, as if he could understand the complex coding. Shiro knew he was just antsy. Keith had never liked being in a position where he was not only helpless, but useless as well. Neither did he.  
“There’s four layers of next gen security between us and the server room.” Katie held up her hands in surrender, flopping back onto her chair, “There’s no way we can get into it from the inside.”  
“If we don’t control the servers, we don’t control the elevators, we don’t control the security cameras. This operation is over before it even begins.” Allura said, her voice stating facts, but her words casting a gloom over the entire team.   
“Like I said, we have to get to it from the outside!” Katie exclaimed, jumping up, face suddenly bright enough not to be directly aiming her insistence against Allura.  
“We?” Keith asked.  
“I mean, I’m on the computer…” Katie said, avoiding eye contact and slinking over to their pile of equipment by Lance, “Allura has to play Haggar, Lance is manning the machinery and also not recovered enough from his injuries,” this earned a sharp “Hey!” from Lance, “and Hunk is the bellhop, and Shiro is... well he’s not exactly right for this mission.”  
Keith suddenly grew tense. He had obviously enquired just for clarification, not because he had been volunteering himself.  
Katie turned back, her face worryingly still sunlit in excitement, “You were assigned to be the ‘helper’, right? Well, we need your help!”  
Keith was still blinking, still processing, “From the outside huh?”  
But Shiro knew the Red Agent was nothing if not surprisingly adaptable to situations.   
“What floor is the server room on?” Keith asked, his words moving out if his mouth as if independent of his brain. Shiro was almost smiling now, feeling a sense of calm come over his lungs as he breathed easy. When Keith set his mind to something, he never backed out, and thankfully, it was working in their advantage. They may just be able to continue with the mission.   
Allura was biting her nail on the other side of the room, clearly still anxious about the entire situation. Shiro let her stew for now. Just wait. The Red Agent was on it. 

“One hundred and thirty.” Pidge stated from behind the cases of equipment.  
Keith walked over to the floor to ceiling windows, gazing out at the rest of the building that arched out gradually beside them. They were higher than he had ever been in a building in his life, and yet more building stretched above them, almost disappearing into the atmosphere.  
“One hundred and thirty?” Keith hated how breathless he sounded.   
“What about the vent ducts?” Lance piped up, coming over to stand by Keith at the window. Keith was surprised again at Lance and made another mental note to give the Blue Agent more credit.   
“Pressure sensitive.” Hunk replied.  
“Not enough time.” Allura said.   
“Elevator shaft?” Lance tried again, his blue eyes bright in the daylight streaming through the windows.  
“InfraRed sensors.” Hunk said, giving Lance a sympathetic eye.  
“Not enough time.” Allura repeated.  
Keith pursed his lips, “How am I supposed to do this?”  
Whiz.Thunk.  
Weeeeeeeeeeee!  
Keith blinked at the long black glove sticking to the window by his head, its high-pitched whine obviously meaning it was activated somehow. He turned to see Pidge coming over, holding another glove.   
She tossed it to him and Keith caught it deftly against his chest.  
“Hunk?” Pidge didn’t stop looking at Keith, her terrifying smile not yet leaving her face, “Get the glass cutters.”  
In an almost concerning number of seconds, Hunk and Lance were at the window, cutting it along its edge against the thick metal frames. The ‘glass cutters’, as it turned out, were little laser guns that cut through the thick industrial glass like butter. A few times, the guns shorted out for a second, sending sparks and curses (and the appropriate monetary fine to the swear jar) flying, but the job was complete in less than five minutes.   
While Keith disappeared into the bathroom to change into something a little easier to move around in than silk and a suit, Allura came and attached a suction holder that slid the enormous pane out from its frame. She and Hunk then carried it out of the way, holding onto the edges with towels.  
Keith came out to see Hunk and Allura carrying the window pane, “Quiznack, that’s high.” Hunk shuddered and looked away from the abyssal view as they carried the pane to lean against a side wall as hot desert wind beginning to blow in, mixing with the air conditioning.  
Keith made sure he was out of their way, now dressed it more appropriate… climbing gear? He wasn’t sure what to call it except for black cargo pants that went to his mid-thigh and then tightened around elastic bands, knee pads, a utility belt, a black shirt with a harness and clear eye goggles to protect his eyes against the wind, which were hung around his neck for the moment.   
Keith had substituted his Fendi dress shoes for flexible rubber-like support shoes that had glove like sections for his big toe and gripped the tile floor like mini suction cups. While Pidge walked over with the gloves, her face still way too excited for what he was about to do, Keith tied his longer hair in a ponytail so it wouldn’t blow in his face. He could do little about his bangs as there were no headbands in sight.  
There was suddenly an odd noise that sounded like a choke from Lance’s direction, but when Keith looked up, Lance was staring almost too intently at the processor for the mask creator and Hunk stood behind him, his hand clapped against his mouth, his eyes so crinkled they almost disappeared in a laugh.   
Before Keith could even make a confused face at them, Pidge was holding up the gloves for him to put on.   
The sticky gloves went almost to Keith’s elbow and were strapped securely on with a combination of rubber and Velcro. On the back of the gloves was a glowing blue indicator, shaped somewhat like a wifi signal.   
Keith wasn’t sure if he should be annoyed or grateful to himself about how hyperaware he now was of Pidge’s hands. He watched them work, just as fast and efficient as anyone else’s, but they made compromises and worked differently. This meant she had had to relearn how to work with her own hands after the accident like an infant discovering their own fingers. Keith didn’t allow himself to pity her, no one benefited from that, but he did allow himself to admire her. She was a very strong person.   
“Okay, just remember it’s a rolling off motion from the hand that disengages the bond.” Pidge said, showing Keith with her own hands, “When the meter is blue, that’s full adhesion. I guess an easy way to remember is that ‘Blue is glue’.”   
Keith had seen the indicator light blink red once when Pidge was putting the gloves on him, but she had tapped the sensor and it had turned blue again, “And if it’s red?  
“Dead.”  
Keith let his jaw drop, but Pidge was already holding up other equipment, “Here’s your glass cutter, and the server interface. I’m going to put them back here: one, two okay?” She told him as she put them into separate holders on his utility belt.   
Allura was sitting at the computer, examining the specs of the building, “Keith, the hotel server room is eleven stories up, and seven units over, okay?”   
Keith barely acknowledged her, his mind apparently having trouble keeping up with what he was actually about to do. Climb. Climb the outside of the tallest building in the world. With what was essentially suction cups.   
“Com check?” Shiro said from Keith’s left.  
“Oh, um, ya. C-copy.” Keith couldn’t stop looking at the open space where the window had been, the hot air blowing into the room in a whirling breeze.   
“So…” Pidge said from beside him, blinking at him expectantly. She made a little jumping motion with her hands.   
“It’s now twenty-six minutes to door knock.” Allura said with expectant eyebrows.   
“Yeah.” Keith may have whispered as he walked towards the window.  
The slate black tile of the hotel floor seemed to stretch before Keith as he came up to the edge. He spared a valuable second of their time to take in the view. And what a view. What even was this view? He might as well have been looking at Dubai through Google Maps. Everything was sprawled before him like he was looking directly down from a satellite above.   
Never one to waste time, Keith shoved the height and possible- probable- almost guaranteed death to the back of his mind, licked his now dry lips, lowered his goggles over his eyes, and grabbed onto the inside of the metal frame of the right of the windowless window.   
Keith heard a wheeeeee as the glove activated and he tested its firmness as he gripped the inside of the window pane. Slowly, shifting his weight experimentally, Keith pivoted his body outside of the room, his foot sliding over the floor, over the edge and then over the city, taking his body with it onto the outside of the Burj Khalifa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is more of an in-between chapter, but I hope you all liked it! Also, sorry for how squished the writing is! I don't know how to fix it :/ I copy it from the word document and it ends up like that with no tab indents or paragraph separations- any tips on how to make it look better? Any adjustments I try on AO3 don't follow through when I post it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome wonderful readers! So this fic is gonna be a long one. The plot is exclusively from Ghost Protocol but the rest is rewritten for more characters and some better plot happenings and I'm really excited about it! Get ready for long chapters updated about once a week and maybe- hopefully art later on! Please feel free to add kudos and review! Let me know what you think!


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